topic 2: patterns and trends — gender, social class and ethnicity Flashcards
evidence than males are more involved in youth subcultures than females
ONS: young men —
5x more likely arrested
3x more likely excluded from school
Messerschmidt
HEGEMONIC MASCULINITY has key 🔑 values: difficult.
(breadwinner, brave, leadership, strong, status, emotionally detached, dominating women)
some men (espec. lower class) RESORT TO CRIME + DEVIANCE to achieve difficult key 🔑 values and be seen as a REAL MAN 💪👨
middle class men can demonstrate values via education 📖 or job
Haenfler
Online 💻 subcultures
virtual world gives new types of masculinity, e.g. NERD 👾 MASCULINITY
— multiplayer online role-playing games give ALTERNATIVE PATH TO MASCULINITY that differs from hegemonic (reward through competitive and persistent effort, status)
allows men to achieve masculinity without doing crime 😌
POSTMODERNISM. Fluid, unstable and fragmented
#notallmen
evidence to show that women are less likely to be involved in criminal youth subcultures
2021:
UK arrested 538,000 men and 93,000 women
Batchelor found NO girl gangs in over 800 young women
one explanation for girls’ lesser involvement in deviant youth subcultures
CONTROL THEORY (Heidensohn):
— young women more controlled by parents then young men, so less opportunity for crime
— McRobbie and Garber: bedroom 🛏 culture
- cult of femininity
- close friendships
- indoor, private, inaccessible leisure space
- kept away from boys
- friendship, appearance, romance
Safia Mirza 1992
less rebellious behaviour in black girls 👧🏿: PRO-SCHOOL SUBCULTURE
young black women in 2 South London comprehensive schools
didn’t revel against negative labelling + racist/sexist attitudes; more concerned with academic success 📑
Otto Pollak
CHIVALRY THESIS:
women are more deviant than we think: self-report 🙋♀️ studies show more women committing crime than official stats
police more likely to be lenient and chivalrous to women and let them off easy, so dark figure of crime is deceiving.
what was pussy riot 2012 and what does it show?
organised political protest in russia 2012 against state oppression and marginalisation of women
use of spectacular clothing and bodies
many took risks and spent time in prison
shows ability of women to form highly organised and active deviant youth subcultures
what is the main difference between female and male youth subcultures?
female more secretive and less visible than male
Cieslik and Pollock
secretive 🤫 online 💻 female subculture:
Pro-Ana websites
Sufferers of anorexia shared tips on and encouraged each other to lose weight: DAMAGING
Contemporary, postmodern society: future path is overwhelming, unpredictable and uncontrollable (more so than the past). 😰
—> young women respond to risk society with eating disorders? obsessed with controlling their bodies in response to lack of control over their future?
evidence to suggest a convergence in male and female subcultural behaviour?
Jackson 2006: Ladettes (female anti-school culture where girls showed more boisterous behaviour)
how does hebdige’s study demonstrate link between social class and youth subcultures? (Marxism)
💥🎃
used semiotics and found punks making SYMBOLIC STATEMENT AGAINST CONSUMERISM AND CAPITALISM
deliberately shocked 😯 establishment, resist dominant British cultural values, ‘speak for neglected youth’
—> shows working class youths forming politically motivated subcultures to try change society
how does Willis’s study demonstrate link between working class and youth subcultures? (Marxism)
shows working class youths joining rebellious subcultures to resist 👊 ruling class oppression
SEMI-CLASS CONSCIOUS: partially aware of futility of system, so resistance of oppression from teachers was politically motivated
Rosenthal
teachers 🧑🏫 gave class IQ test 📝 without knowing results, Rosenthal studied assumptions made based on gender, ethnicity, social class
what would a postmodernist argue about the link between social class and youth subcultures?
— youth subcultures today more based on INDIVIDUALISM, STYLE and SHARED MEANING,
not rebellion against capitalism ❌
— some youth subcultures SUPPORT concept of capitalism and provide functions that shape future capitalist regimes
Cicourel
official police stats not always accurate of true crime…
3 stages of dealing w delinquents:
- Stop/interrogate 🛑, based on behaviour interpreted as SUSPICIOUS 🤨
- Arrest 👮♀️, based on suspect’s appearance/manner/replies 🗣
- Probation officer 👮♂️ assesses suspect based on picture of ‘typical delinquent’ (‘broken home’, bad attitude, low grades etc)
Behaviour of individual has huge effect of label 🏷 placed upon them.
WORKING CLASS MORE LIKELY TO BE NEGATIVELY LABELLED!
middle class: polite, apologetic 😊, parents more likely to convince po it won’t happen again
JUSTICE CAN BE NEGOTIATED
Alexander
The Myth of the Asian Gang:
working class British Asian men more likely to be wrongly ❌ labelled 🏷 as gangs 🔪
2001 Oldham riots: young Asian men confronted police to protest 🪧 racism
—> media 📰 labelled them as violent criminal GANGS
Cloward and Ohlin
functionalists
working class youth blocked 🛑 from middle class LEGITIMATE OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES
forced to take ILLEGITIMATE OPPORTUNITY STRUCTURES (drugs, theft)
—> the LABEL 🏷 attached to working class youths may be a TRUE REFLECTION
Cohen
functionalist
working class boys fail to achieve middle class aspirations so INVERT VALUE SYSTEM and create anti-school subculture with new definition of status
🐓😖
Reay
poverty of aspiration
stems from school (mainly state school) 🏫
Archer 🏹
idea of “the street” more exciting and accessible to working class boys than school
(links to 🐓😖)
King 👑 and Smith
JACK WILLS CROWD
brand associated with upper class
(tweed, skiing, sailing, private schools, Oxbridge sporting events)
🐎⛵️👞🎓
as top unis include more working class people, INCREASED PRESSURE TO MAINTAIN UPPER CLASS SOCIAL STATUS —> INCREASED DESIRE TO EMBRACE JACK WILLS CULTURE
Katz (postmodernism)
social class + political motives NO LONGER 🚫 driving factor of subcultures
postmodernist choice and consumerism 🛍: style, fashion 👗, pleasure of transgression, break with routine
Scraton 1987
neo-Marxist
ethnic minorities commit crime as POLITICAL ACT not CRIMINAL ACT
organised CULTURES OF RESISTANCE 💪 in response to institutional discrimination
origins in ANTI-COLONIAL STRUGGLES
Sivanandan 1981
RASTAFARIANISM
2nd gen Afro-Caribbean immigrants
racism + high unemployment ➡️ socially + economically marginalised ➡️ found culture of resistance and strong 💪 distinctive identity in Jamaican culture of Rastas
dreadlocks, reggae music 🎶, ritualising cannabis 🍃
fighting capitalism + racism was continuation of POLITICAL STRUGGLE AGAINST WHITE SLAVE OWNER
Murray (New Right)
higher crime rates in ethnic minorities bc of INADEQUATE SOCIALISATION
Black British families 2x more likely to be single-parent.
90% of single-parent families female-headed.
Mothers supposedly worse at discipline.
Greater numbers of Black British children join criminal youth subcultures
Hutnyk
hybrid cultures 😟 have CULTURAL APPROPRIATION?!
individuals shouldn’t 🚫 appropriate symbols from other cultures as it often has SUPERFICIAL INTENT and ignores the deep history and culture behind it
e.g. dreadlocks = symbol of resistance to white oppression, slavery, colonialism, genocide
Vale and Juno
modern primitives
young people feel drawn towards tattoos and scarification (non-tribal people adopting these traditions show cultural hybridity)
