Youth Culture Flashcards

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1
Q

Hall et al.

A

Policing the Crisis

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2
Q

What did Hall et al’s Policing the Crisis study entail?

A
  • Studied street crime among young black males in London in the 1970s
  • The government and the media were promoting racism and demonising young black men to distract attention from political problems and a poorly performing economy.
  • young black men were using deviance as a way of protesting the violence and racism they were facing. In the process, they were being labelled as criminal
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3
Q

Stuart Hall et al. Evaluation

A
  • Hall et al. have brought ethnicity and racism into the discussion of crime and deviance, something that was largely absent in sociological theory before.
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4
Q

Phil Cohen

A

Resistance theory

Skinheads

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5
Q

What did Cohen and other Marxists at the CCCS think about youth cultures?

A

They believed youth style was changing as a result of the particular economic conditions each generation of working-class youths faced. In order to try and prove this theory, Phil Cohen carried out a semiotic analysis of the skinheads.

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6
Q

What’s semiotics ?

A

Semiotics refers to the study of signs – symbols that communicate something. Cultural studies analysts began to decode the meaning behind choice of clothes, music and slang language used.

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7
Q

What did Phil Cohen’s (1972) semiotic analysis of the skinheads find?

A
  • The skinheads wore an exaggerated version of traditional working- class male clothes.
  • This reassertion of working-class values was a response to a number of factors linked to the decline in white working-class inner-city communities.
  • They were racist towards poorer Asians, particularly those from Pakistan, whom the white working-class perceived as taking their jobs and destroying their communities.
    • Much of the activity of the skinheads was an attempt to reclaim territory, which they played out through football hooliganism
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8
Q

Phil Cohen Evaluation

A

The semiotic analysis used by the CCCS and Phil Cohen is a subjective way of analysing the skinhead’s behaviour. The skinheads never articulated that they were resisting capitalism, so concluding that their style was an attempt to do so is just Marxists letting their own person bias influence their findings.

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9
Q

Hall and Jefferson

A

Resistance through style

Teddy Boys

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10
Q

Hegemony

A

suggests that the ruling class control our dominant values in society and set the status quo. This is because the ruling class control the mass media and what we are taught in school.

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11
Q

What did Hall and Jefferson believe?

A

working-class young people (particularly those who had done poorly at school) formed the weakest point in the ruling class’s control of society, as unlike adults they were not tied into capitalist society through jobs and family commitments.

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12
Q

What did Hall and Jefferson 1976 research on the Teddy Boys find?

A

The rise of the Teddy Boys in the 50s coincided with the expansion of employment and the general rise in affluence as a result of the major resurgence of industry after WW2.
• The Teddy Boys were however excluded from this rise in affluence after losing out in both education and employment.
• They wore Edwardian style jackets, suede shoes, bootlace ties. These items were analysed by Hall and Jefferson.
• The jackets and shoes were a subversion of the Edwardian Dandy style which had become popular with the upper middle class. Their use by the working-class Teddy Boys showed contempt for the class system by usurping the clothing style of their supposed ‘social superiors’.

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13
Q

Hall and Jefferson Evaluation

A
  • The CCCS only focus on the extreme subcultures and the majority of young people who are fairly conformist are overlooked in their studies of youth culture.
  • Feminists have criticised the CCCS for having a malestream bias. This meant they were male researchers and only looked into youth cultures from a male point of view. This is probably a fair criticism considering the youth cultures they studied were white, working-class males.
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14
Q

Hebdige

A

Resistance Theory

Punk

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15
Q

What does bricolage mean?

A

a process of ‘bricolage’ (the reuse of ordinary objects in a different way to create challenging new meanings) occurred in Punk subculture. Punk emerged in the 1970s as a response to the dominance of the media, fashion and music industries.

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16
Q

Hedbidge’s study on Punks conclusions

A
One side was working-class young people disenchanted with their economic and social situation, and on the other side, art college students attracted by its creativity and energy. 
Hebdige (1979) coined the term the ‘blargeneration’ saying that the only thing that Punks had in common was their rejection of anything orderly, restrained and sacred
17
Q

What was rare about the Punks

A

one of the few resistance subcultures that did have political elements to it. The lyrics of bands such as the Clash were about experiences of life on estates, unemployment benefit and ‘White riots’. In many ways, Punk was the complete opposite of skinhead subculture. Although they did share issues such as unemployment

18
Q

Hebidge Evaluation

A

The punk movement is no longer an anti-capitalist or anti-consumerist subculture. Punk style today is very expensive, and this subculture could not likely be a working-class subculture or exist in the same way.

19
Q

Brake

A

Magical Solutions

20
Q

What does Brake mean by Magical Solutions

A

The rituals working-class youths engage are a magical solution because they have no basis in reality. They too will form relationships, get jobs, have children and so on. But the magic trick keeps each working-class generation believing they are different.

21
Q

Difference between MC and WC subcultures (Brake)

A

Working-class subcultures more likely to be countercultural –they can provide complete cultural alternatives (political or religious) to mainstream culture. Middle-class youth subcultures are more all-encompassing

22
Q

Brake’s Analysis on youth cultures

A

Brake is sympathetic to the idea that youth subcultures are a form of resistance to capitalism, but he also notes that they do nothing to alter the power + economic differences that create problems for working-class youths in the first place. In terms of actually challenging capitalism, their attempts are pointless.

23
Q

Brake Evaluation

A

There are examples of middle-class subcultures that are countercultural. Consider the hippies.

24
Q

Borden

A

Resistance Theory

Skaters

25
Q

What was Ian Borden’s study called?

A

(2001)’skateboarding, space the city’

26
Q

What did Borden’s study claim?

A

a certain ‘outlaw’ status for skateboarders as figures standing apart from and against the ‘rule of the commodity’ (the reduction of everything to profit-making). He argued that skateboarders are a ‘countercultural’/’subcultural’ group, primarily consisting of youth who seek to reclaim the city space. Skateboarding is a collecting act of resistance

27
Q

How do skateboarders express their rejection of capitalism ?

A

they reject the control of urban streets by profit making leisure industries and the repressive legislation which supports this, such as laws of trespass and antisocial
behaviour.

28
Q

Borden Evaluation

A
  • Skateboarders as a subculture are evidently more relevant today than other subcultures explored by the CCCS.