Youth Subcultures Related To Social Class

Question 1

Describe Cohen’s study on skinheads and mods

Answer 1

• skinheads have low self esteem due to their low social status
• were working class and celebrated working class culture by wearing styles that demonstrate manliness and being tough
• exaggerated version of the working class
• violent and aggressive and disliked ethnic groups and the middle class
• Mods were more affluent working class, they’re interested in fashion and style and rejected traditional working class values and copied the middle-class (e.g. wore flashy Italian suits)

Question 2

Evaluate Cohen’s work

Answer 2

• Mike Brake agrees that youth subcultures can be divided into three types: delinquent youth cultural youth, and political youth (+)
• feminists disagree with research and female skinheads and mods are ignored (-)

Question 3

AO1 on Cohen’s status frustration

Answer 3

• Cohen argued that delinquency is a collective response - delinquents join together to express their discontent and commit crime
• young working class boys cannot fit into mainstream norms and expectations due to their deprived background, educational failure and not as many opportunities
• they experience ‘anomie’ and reject expectations of mainstream culture (status frustration)
• they commit crimes as an outlet of tensions and frustration

Question 4

AO3. On Cohen’s status frustration

Answer 4

• Box criticised Cohen’s theory and stated that delinquent working class subculture can only be applied to a small minority of criminals (-)
• Matza criticised his theory and her research found that many delinquent accepted mainstream values and only occasionally committed crime (-)

Question 5

describe Jock Young’s research on the Hippie marijuana users

Answer 5

• Jock young studied hippie marijuana users who lived in Notting Hill (middle class)
• he saw that the labelling theory occurred whereby police labelled the hippies as unstable drug addicts and scruffy as a result the hippies responded by smoking marijuana even more. Hippies grew their hair and wore unconventional clothes to look even more scruffy
• hippies rejected the capitalist system and focus on love, peace, drugs and folk music

Question 6

Evaluation on Jock Young’s research

Answer 6

• class does not seem to be an important factor for the hippies this is supported by post modernists. Less segregation between youth subcultures, class convergence, as many young people attend clubs and do same activties(+)
• Marxists critics this research as the working class were not considered even though hippies and the working class share similar values (-)