Youth Culture

Question 1

Freda Adler (1975)

Answer 1

Girls and their involvement in deviant Youth Cultures - Liberation Thesis

Question 2

What did Adler’s liberation thesis entail?

Answer 2

Women’s liberation has resulted in an increase in offenders as women adopted more male qualities in order to fulfil male societal responsibilities - just consider the emergence of the ‘ladette.’

Question 3

Why do women engage in deviant activity?

Answer 3

women’s greater self -confidence and assertiveness, and the fact that they now have greater opportunities in the legitimate structure

Question 4

Ladette

Answer 4

Phenomenon of the late 90s and 00s , where young women behaved in a boisterously assertive or crude manner and engages in heavy drinking sessions.

Question 5

Freda Adler evaluation

Answer 5

This theory suggests that females who engage in deviance, and in turn crime, are doing it as a result of liberation. However, most female offenders are WC the group least likely to be influenced by women’s liberation.

Question 6

Angela McRobbie and Garber (1976)

Answer 6

The Invisible Girl + Bedroom culture

Question 7

What does McRobbie and Garber discuss about girls in youth culture?

Answer 7

the place of young women in youth culture reflects their general position in society. Although they are present in all youth subcultures, they are pushed to the margins of this largely male social activity.

Question 8

Why is the term invisible girl used when discussing girls in youth subcultures

Answer 8

Feminists like McRobbie have stated that when exploring youth subcultures females are largely missing.

Question 9

What did McRobbie argue about females in subcultures

Answer 9

According to her, youth cultures let males have ‘temporary flights’ of freedom away from the responsibilities and constraints imposed on male adults in society, but females are denied this possibility because of greater parental control and the constraints imposed by other females concerning appropriate sexual conduct

Question 10

McRobbie on bedroom culture

Answer 10

the range of possibilities open to females in subcultures is much more limited than that of males, which results in girls engaging in ‘bedroom culture’

Question 11

How do girls engage in bedroom culture

Answer 11

Activities - Chat with friends, read magazines, gossip
Territory - Claimed their space by decorating their rooms in a personal way, posters etc.
Music - Pop music that emphasise lyrics over music

Question 12

Angela McRobbie evaluation

Answer 12

More recent research confirms the continuing existence of bedroom culture (Lincoln, 2004). However, Lincoln also argued many aspects of bedroom culture have changed significantly. Boyfriends are more often allowed into bedrooms, the internet and TV meant that there were more external influences on girls than their immediate friendship group.

Question 13

Sarah Thornton (1995)

Answer 13

Club cultures

Question 14

What did Thronton find on the marginalisation of females in subcultures

Answer 14

Thornton studied the dance music scene of the 1990s and discovered that, although females were more likely to go clubbing than boys, they were often associated with less status than males because they were associated with a taste for mainstream pop music

Question 15

How do Thornton and Marxist Bourdieu link?

Answer 15

• Drawing from the work of Bourdieu, Sarah Thornton coins the term “subcultural capital” to make sense of the distinctions made by “cool” youth paying particular attention to their disparagement of the “mainstream” against which they measure their alternative cultural worth.
• female youths were less likely to have subcultural capital because their preference for more mainstream music and style was deemed as ‘uncool’ by more alternative, male dominated subcultures.

Question 16

Sarah Thornton evaluation

Answer 16

Thornton’s ideas about women being marginalised in clubbing culture, despite their greater presence than men, reflect many issues in the clubbing scene today. Many clubs will give women free entry but charge men, setting the precedent that women exist in clubs to entertain men.

Question 17

What would postmodernists say about Sarah Thornton?

Answer 17

Postmodernists such as Bennett reject the notion that
gender divides youth cultures in this way. Bennett’s research found clubs to be a place where divisions like gender no longer mattered to young people. Young people can construct their identity through a huge range of consumer choices – which clubs they attend, how they dress, brands, leisure etc. This would suggest girls are no longer marginalised in clubbing culture.

Question 18

Bill Osbergy (1997)

Answer 18

Sexist and Aggressive Masculinity

Question 19

What did Bill Osbergy say was the reasoning behind the absence of girls in subcultures

Answer 19

girls are absent in youth culture because they are avoidant of the sexist and aggressive behaviours they encounter when they participate in male dominated youth subcultures

Question 20

Osgerby and the societal shift in male expectations

Answer 20

Osgerby (1997) says that before the 1950s males were expected to look after women. However, youth cultures and media stereotypes encouraged men to take on a more sexist and aggressive role. men were once credited for holding a door open for a woman but are now credited for saying sexist comments, overtly sexualising and cat-calling women. This would suggest that

Question 21

Carolyn Jackson (2006)

Answer 21

Lads and Ladettes in school

Question 22

What did Carolyn Jackson’s research include?

Answer 22

Jackson used a variety of methods, including self-complete questionnaires and interviews. Year 9 pupils completed 3 questionnaires.
one that concerned their goals, one their behaviour and one one their views about ‘laddishness’ and popularity.
Pupils were required to respond to statements on a five-point scale according to levels of agreement, and there were slightly different questionnaires for boys and for girls. Semi-structured interviews were also used. Jackson interviewed 153 pupils - 75 girls and 78 boys. The audiotapes were transcribed and then analysed with the help of computer packages which identified key themes: academic pressures,
academic self-presentation, SATs, ‘lads’, ‘laddettes’. Some of the key themes were further subdivided into ability, aggression, loudness, language, drinking and dress.

Question 23

What did Carolyn Jackson’s 2006 study discover?

Answer 23

laddish behaviour can have important advantages from the perspective of many boys and girls. First, it makes them appear ‘cool’ if they have a laugh and mess around in class. This aspect of ‘laddishness’ was accepted by boys and girls, whatever their social class background.,

Question 24

How did Carolyn Jackson’s study link to youth culture?

Answer 24

A new feminine identity known as the laddette movement has emerged. This suggests some girls are
taking a more active role in youth cultures than feminists like McRobbie found in the 1970s.

Question 25

Carolyn Jackson Evaluation

Answer 25

Insightful as Jackson explores how gender roles have changed since the 1970s

Question 26

How would post-modernists critique Carolyn Jackson?

Answer 26

Postmodernists would say that even these feminist ideas are now outdated. The fact Jackson had to use the term laddette to describe girls taking on the boisterous behaviours associated with males highlights this. Youths today regard gender as fluid and terms like laddette and metrosexual have lost all meaning.

Question 27

Debbie Archer (1998)

Answer 27

Girls in gangs

Girls active in youth culture

Question 28

What was the title of Archer’s 1998 study

Answer 28

‘Riot GRRL and raisin

girls’

Question 29

What did Archer study?

Answer 29

a rising phenomenon of girl gangs. Most research into girl gangs is from the USA, Archer pointed out the lack of research into girl gangs in the UK but claimed that the numbers of girls involved in such gang-related criminal activities are growing.

Question 30

How did Archer conduct her research

Answer 30

Archer drew on secondary research in order to support her findings. She looked at existing literature as well as interview transcripts from the police and from journalists who had personally interacted with girls from gangs.

Question 31

What did Archer conclude on her study?

Answer 31

Archer sees girls as taking an active role in criminal activity and in youth cultures. Girls
are not socially controlled in the ways explored by earlier feminist work such as McRobbie’s bedroom culture

Question 32

Archer Evaluation

Answer 32

Her findings are based on secondary research. Archer never interacted with girls in gangs herself. She is relying on the information she could access from newspapers, journalists and police officers. Many of the information the police provided her with were limited to how much the officer she spoke with could recall. The newspaper information would have been sensationalised. Archer’s findings may not all be authentic.

Question 33

Reddington (2003)

Answer 33

Girls Active in subcultures

Punks

Question 34

How was Reddington different to other feminists?

Answer 34

Reddington (2003) takes a more positive view of the role of females in subcultures than previous feminists like McRobbie had suggested. Girls have always taken an active role in youth subcultures - this was simply ignored by many sociologists.

Question 35

Reddington and the punk movement

Answer 35

Women like Vivienne Westwood played a key role in punk fashion and punk bands often featured women as equal members (e.g. The Adverts) or were made up entirely of female members (e.g. The Slits). Female journalists such as Julie Burchill were also important in publicising and supporting the punk movement.

Question 36

How did punk music play a role in Debbie Archer’s 1998 study on girl gangs?

Answer 36

These ‘raisin’ or gang girls are defying the standard norms and conventions in a similar way to those male delinquents who were the subjects of delinquency studies in the 1940s, 50s and 60s. The self empowerment of women through subcultural styles might arguably have begun with punk, which was the precursor to hip hop.

Question 37

Archer and Punk culture

Answer 37

Punk culture represented the start of female self empowerment and it marked the inclusion of women taking a central, rather than a supporting role, in a major subcultural movement. Notions of femininity were questioned by female punk rock singers and punk broke through race and gender barriers.