Sociology



Sociology

Unit B672 (Socialisation, Culture and Identity) Revision

Sociology of Youth

Part 1- Defining Youth

What is childhood?

This is not as silly question as it may sound because there is no clear answer. One answer is a biological one -- that children are humans who are not yet physically mature. Yet some people still at primary school, whom we would think of as children, may have reached puberty (become capable of reproduction) and have acquired secondary sexual characteristics such as body hair. If we still treat them as children, then being a child is social as well as biological.

In Britain today, people become adults at the age of 18 – the “coming of age” -- but in fact many adult rights and responsibilities have already been acquired. For example, you can leave school and work full-time at 16, and drive (if you have passed the test) at 17.

Not all rights and responsibilities come at a given age. Some can arrive very early; for example, the teenage girl who becomes a mother. Others may be very late; for example, a student may not be financially independent until well into his or her 20s because he or she needs support from parents.

Childhood in the past

The big change to childhood was probably the gradually growing importance of education and schools, first for the upper-class but eventually for everyone. Children became people who were still at school, who have not yet learned what they needed for adult life.

What is expected of children has therefore changed enormously over time. Childhood is different in different cultures and at a different time in history. So we can say that childhood is socially constructed.

Childhood in other cultures

Another way of looking at the social construction of childhood is to look at other cultures. “Traditional” societies do not see childhood and ending at a particular age, but rather as ending with a ceremonial ritual, a rite of passage. The child leaves his or her family home for a period to undergo a series of rites of initiation into adult life. Before this, the individual is a child; afterwards an adult with, depending on the society, the right to carry weapons, to marry and to take part in decision-making. For boys the rite often involves circumcision, during which they must not flinch. For girls there is sometimes the mutilation of the genitals (euphemistically known as female circumcision). For both sexes, there may be scarring, special clothing, fasting and feasting.

Transition to adulthood

In comparison the end of childhood in Britain is a long drawn-out process of gradually acquiring rights and responsibilities. Adolescence is a period of transition; individuals have learned to move out of the comfort of their parents' home and into the world of work. It could be seen as a time that allows a young person to leave behind childhood ideas and behaviour and become an adult. In the contemporary UK this transition may include learning to drive.

At home they are valued as individuals, but at work they will have to compete and be successful. Functionalist sociologists saw membership of a strong peer group in adolescence as a way of easing the transition; by belonging to such a group adolescents had support in growing more independent.

Concerns about children today

Compared to a generation ago, parents tend to be more protective of their children. For example, the freedom children have to roam around their home area has been restricted because of fears about traffic and “stranger danger.” One in 3 children is now driven to school. Parents also control the time their children spend on activities more. In many ways, children have less freedom.

On the other hand, children are much more exposed to some aspects of the adult world than they used to be.

Some rights and responsibilities: 5-21 years

|Age |Rights and Responsibilities |

|5 years |Compulsory schooling begins |

| |You have to pay child is there on trains and buses |

| |You can drink alcohol in private |

|10 years |You can be convicted of a criminal offence if it can be proved that you knew what you were doing was |

| |wrong |

|12 years |You can buy a pet |

|13 years |You can have a part-time job, subject to restrictions |

|14 years |You can go into a pub but not drink alcohol |

|16 years |You can leave school |

| |You can marry with your parents’ consent |

| |A girl can consent to heterosexual intercourse |

| |You can hold a licence to drive a moped |

|17 years |You can hold a licence to drive most vehicles |

| |You can buy or hire a gun or ammunition |

|18 years |You can vote |

| |You can buy alcohol |

| |You can serve on a jury |

| |You can get married without your parents' consent |

|21 years |You can become an MP |

| |You can adopt a child |

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Part 2- Control through Peer Group and Gangs

Control through peer groups

As a young person you are socialised and controlled in a number of ways. Sociologists refer to the different groups that control you as the agents of social control. Some of these exist with the sole purpose of controlling you and make sure you conform (follow the rules). These are known as the formal agents of social control. The police, the courts and the army are all formal agents of social control. Others also control you, but this is not the only reason they exist. These are known as the informal agents of social control.

The peer group as an agent of social control

A simple definition of peer group is “others of the same age, with the same background, interests and social status”. Many young people feel that their peer group is the main agent of social control. Although it is an informal agent, the influence of the peer group when we are 15 can be very strong. Often it is fear of rejection or being laughed at that controls our behaviour. However, sanctions can also be verbal or physical. It is the pressure to conform from our peers that make us decide to follow this agent of social control rather than another. For example, you might have to decide whether to go home on time, as dictated by your family, or to stay out longer, as dictated by your peer group. Peer group pressure is often stronger at different points in our lives.

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In the media, peer group pressure is commonly associated with negative behaviour, but it can be positive. Your peer group can convince you not to break the law, remind you to help others in trouble or even get you to do your homework. This is known as positive peer group pressure, as it helps you to conform to society's norms and values. Whilst the peer group is seen as an agent of social control that conflicts with many others, this does not have to be the case.

Other agencies of social control

• Families: we are at our most impressionable when we are very young, and the strength of the bond between parents and children means that parents are in a uniquely powerful position to influence children. During primary socialisation children accept norms and values and internalise them; that is, they think of them as their role in an act as a conscience. Parents have many ways of influencing their children's behaviour. They reward some kinds of behaviour and make clear their disapproval of others. They act as role models; the constant example set by people that the child would like to be like is a powerful influence.

• Schools: schools exercise control over young people in many ways. Children have to be in school and have to behave in certain ways and they can be punished if they do not conform to these requirements. Some sociologists argue that this control of behaviour is the real purpose of schools; and is more important than the content of the lessons. This other side to what is learnt in schools is known as the “hidden curriculum.”

• Religion: for some (religious) young people religion offers a very powerful deterrent against bad behaviour. In Christianity, sinners face an eternity of hell and damnation, while the good will have everlasting peace in heaven. Religions lay down rules for good conduct, and prohibit other behaviour, promising rewards and threatening punishments.

• Mass media: messages in the media can have a strong influence on behaviour. The news tells us who has been punished for which crimes, and reinforce the idea that breaking the law is wrong. Television also provides powerful role models.

Force

If the agencies of social control discussed above fail to control people's behaviour, societies have yet more powerful sanctions. The police are an organisation set up for the explicit purpose of social control, with a range of sanctions, from cautioning to criminal charges. They can use force when they think it necessary. They can use ankles, truncheons and even sometimes guns.

Sometimes even this is not enough. If the police cannot cope, the army will be used.

Part 3- Youth Subculture

Youth Culture

How far do young people have a distinct culture of their own? Many adults find it difficult to understand features of the teenage world which never existed when they were young. Pop idols and fast changing fashions seem to give young people a way of life that is alien and closed to most adults. While most teenagers enjoy this youth culture, some join particular youth groups with distinct lifestyles.

Youth subcultures

In looking at the postwar youth cults such as Teddyboys and punks, sociologists have asked whether such groups are subcultures. For sociologists, culture means a way of life of a society. A subculture therefore refers to a way of life shared by a minority which is different in important respects from the life pursued by the majority of the population. For example, travellers have a subculture because they have their own distinctive patterns of behaviour and different values and beliefs from the rest of society. Therefore, the term youth subculture is used to refer to a group of young people who lead a distinctive way of life with their own attitudes, values and modes of behaviour.

Reasons for the development of youth subculture

Some sociologists have suggested that youth cults are a post-war phenomenon. As well as the raising of the school leaving age, the following reasons are usually given for the emergence of youth culture:

1. Affluence: in the 1950s teenagers had more money to spend than previous generations. Industry began to respond to the growing spending power of this age group by producing goods specifically aimed at the youth market.

2. Leisure: modern teenagers not only have more money to spend than previous generations but they also have more free time in which to enjoy night-life, films, records, fashions and so on.

3. The mass media: two sorts of influence can be seen:

a) the record industry, TV, radio and magazine publishers have expanded to cater for the teenage market;

b) the mass media as a whole have stimulated interest in new youth groups. The popular press often seem obsessed with the new, “way-out” styles of the young

It is undoubtedly the case that these factors have had an effect on young people's lives and since the 1950s a series of youth cults have emerged with their own styles of dress and music.

Youth culture and the media

Some observers argue that youth culture has emerged because of post-war affluence, extended schooling and the unclear position in which modern youth find themselves. Sociologists such as Stan Cohen have drawn attention to the extent to which youth subcultures are the creation of the mass media.

Youth subcultures in the 1990s

Both of the following examples have partly developed from earlier movements. Ravers have been inspired by the hippies of the 1960s and Goths arose from the punks of the 1970s. The media have created a considerable moral panic about ravers. In 1994, the Essex police deployed a helicopter, as well as roadblocks, to try to prevent all-night acid house parties or raves; six-month prison sentences were proposed for organisers for breaking the licensing laws which govern the holding of public entertainments.

The Goths

Tristan Hoare, a student of youth culture, gives the following description of Goths:

• The Goths have their own style of dress music and values. The style of dress reflects their outlook: just as Goths are independent of other youth subcultures, their dress is independent of mainstream fashion. Nobody mistakes a Goth for anything else. The title “Goth” was given to this group by the media due to their vampire style of dress. The Gothic byword is black. So Goths tend to wear black clothes and black shoes (never trainers), to have black hair and to wear black make-up. The Gothic physical ideal is athletically slim with a deathly pale complexion.

• The subculture revolves, as with most subcultures, around its music. This veers between aggressive rock (Sisters of Mercy) through post punk morbidity (Siouxsie and the Banshees) to industrial dance music (Nine Inch Nails).

• The social outlook of Goths in general is one of hatred for the norms of society, which is partly the result of the negative response they tend to receive from non-Goths, in particular from the older generation. Goths have a passion for the arts and expend massive amounts of time and effort on their own appearance, treating themselves as canvases for their creativity. A certain degree of rivalry exists among groups of Goths over who looks the most impressive.

• Some people mistakenly think that Goths are Satanists (Devil worshippers), possibly because of their style of dress. They are, however, interested in earlier non-Christian religions and ways of life, especially in Celtic Britain. This interest is shown in the style of jewellery they wear.

In conclusion the Goths are a flamboyant and distinctive youth subculture but not an aggressive one. It is probably their distinctiveness and independence that has helped to keep them going for so long.

Youth and gender

In the 1970s, some sociologists argued that young teenage girls were part of a gendered subculture. McRobbie and Garber (1976) referred to this as a bedroom subculture. They wrote that it existed separately from boys, who were hanging out in public. They interviewed a group of girls and found that their culture was led by the media and involved experimenting with hair and make-up and discussing boys in their bedrooms. Girls, because of the way they were tightly controlled by their parents and because of the way that boys dominated public space were therefore largely “invisible”.

This research found that girls are members of youth subcultures but in marginal, “feminine” positions that reflect the normal sexual expectations of boys. Girls are defined as “girlfriends” for example. Female skinheads and punks are certainly rebelling against the mainstream culture of femininity, but within the subcultures themselves traditional working-class gender divisions still seemed to hold.

Ethnicity and Youth Subcultures

Since the 1970s there have been a number of studies of young people from ethnic minorities. Afro-Caribbean youth have probably attracted most attention because of the negative images of them in the mass media.

A number of studies have focused on the subculture of Rastafarianism. While only a minority of Afro-Caribbean youths were or are Rastafarian, the movement has encouraged a sense of pride in being black amongst many young blacks.

In recent years a variety of other black youth subcultures have emerged which suggests that for many young blacks, ethnicity, as well as age, is important in developing a cultural identity. Black youth subcultures have also been an important influence on white young people with many whites adopting black styles of dress, speech and music.

Asian young people, because of their religious traditions and the fact that they emerge from close knit families, have traditionally been seen to be more conformist. However, there is evidence that young Asians are developing their own identities. While many young Asians feel a sense of loyalty to their parent’s culture, they are also influenced by Western ideals and values. Elements of both these can be seen in Asian youth subcultures.

Class and Youth Subcultures

Some subcultures seem to unite young people of similar economic status. For example, Skinhead culture united members of the working class, allowing its members to release their frustration at being poor and unemployed. The Anger of the Skinheads was targeted at immigrants -- it was a patriotic but also a racist subculture. Others believe that Skinhead subculture did not start out this way, but that it had its roots in Ska music, a fusion of Jamaican and British and American rock.

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Part 4- Gangs

Different types of gangs

Gangs are subcultures where the activities are classified as being delinquent.

Sociologists who have studied gangs have come to the conclusion that not all gangs are the same. They can be defined according to the type of area from which their members originate. Sociologists Cloward and Ohlin defined types of gangs under three broad categories-

1. Firstly they identified criminal gangs in which adolescents used crime in order to attain “money success”. These gangs tended to emerge in areas where many of the adults, who were role-models to the young, were involved in crime, and the young men were able to learn the tricks of the trade.

2. Conflict gangs are fighting gangs. These tended to emerge in areas where neither legal (by being successful at school and gaining qualifications), or illegal (by breaking the law) opportunities for success existed. As a result, gang members resorted to violence as a means of escape.

3. Retreatist gangs centred on illegal drug-using and hustling. Delinquent youths who were not able to be a successful member of the other two types of gang tended to join these gangs.

Which sort of gang a person therefore joined depended largely on the type of social background they came from.

Reasons for joining gangs

Boredom: for many, joining a gang is relief from boredom. It is little more than “something to do”. Because of this, many youth workers feel that the way to stop young people getting into gangs is by providing activities and groups for them to get involved in.

Sense of belonging: Walter Miller (1958) felt that adolescence is a time when young people often feel lonely and unsure of themselves. As a result they feel the need to belong, to fit in. For this reason gang membership is popular as it offers a sense of belonging.

Labelling theory: was developed by Becker (1951) in relation to the study of delinquency and was later applied to the study of teacher’s interactions with students. He found that teachers often “label” their students in their own minds; sometimes subconsciously, and go on to treat them according to their preconceptions. This was particularly the case with children from working-class and ethnic-minority backgrounds.

Family: fictional presentations of gangs in the media often focus on the idea that young people who join gangs are lacking in family and/or role models. This image is one of boys with no father is turning to gang leaders to replace their missing father.

Friendship: for some, the people they hang out with are merely their friendship group rather than a gang. The media sometimes reports normal youths' behaviour as gang behaviour. A good example of this is the recent moral panic associated with young people who wear “hoodies”. Their uniform appearance is due to shared tastes and their behaviour is just related to friends having fun. The supposed hierarchy, with a known leader, is just the norm of a group where some take on the role as leader, whilst others take on the role of followers. The strong loyalty of the group results from the value we have for friends.

Status Frustration: Albert Cohen (1955) stated that some working-class children fail to succeed in school and have little social status. Due to this he noted that song, out of resentment, join a group which has different norms and values to the society in which they are a failure. In this new group or gang, the young person can gain a new, higher status due to the different (often delinquent) norms and values.

Peer group pressure: sometimes in the media gang membership is presented as a rite of passage in the area depicted. It is not optional. Joining the gang is what you have to do or you will be picked on as a “nonnie” (non-gang member).

Social networks: in Howard Williamson’s study Milltown Boys (1997), after observing a delinquent gang for some time, he concluded that it was not organised. Although the gang cared about territory and hierarchy, they were not focused on illegal activities -- it was more about having a social network.

Typical gangs members?

Gender Patterns

Kenneth Thompson (1998) notes that there has been a rise recently in media moral panics concerning “girl gangs”. We can locate this panic within a general media concern with so called “rising female violence” and with an increase in the media- and in films in particular- of images of strong, violent women, so-called “shebos” after the 1980s action character “Rambo”, and with the feminist film “Thelma and Louise”.

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Patterns of Ethnicity

Black and Asian youths are much more likely to be stopped and arrested by the police than white youths. For many people this has led to the allegation that the police are in some way racist and deliberately target ethnic minorities. This view gained support after the MacPherson report (1999) labelled the Metropolitan Police as “institutionally racist” in relation to its failure to arrest and prosecute the murderers of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence.

Racism on the part of the police has been suggested as a reason for members of ethnic minorities becoming members of a gang- they join as a form of resistance against the racism of the authorities (this includes schools as well as the police) and the racism of other youths in general.

Class patterns

There have been a number of studies considering the class background of gang members. It seems that there is a clear link between material and social deprivation and gang membership. Gang membership is seen to be more popular among sons of manual workers and among those who live in big families. Unemployment and ill-health are also seen as factors likely to be associated with gang membership, and these factors are known to be more prevalent in low income areas.

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Identify and explain two rights that are acquired with age. [8]

The Historical Development of Childhood- Philippe Aries

Sociologists such as Philippe Aries (1962) believed that the concept of childhood was only invented in the Middle Ages. He stated that before that, at about the age of six, children became miniature adults. They dressed like adults, were expected to work and look after themselves, and they joined in games and outdoor activities with adults. There were no schools and no ages at which rights and responsibilities were required. They might even marry very young, and be treated as criminals if they committed crimes.

Evidence for childhood being a biological stage:

▪ Biologically, all youth go through hormonal changes at puberty.

▪ At this time, young people experience changes in both their attitudes and behaviour.

▪ Many young people go through times of being irritable and unsure of themselves. (A period G. Stanley Hall called “a time of storm and stress.”)

Evidence for social construction of childhood:

▪ The law: in each society the rights and responsibilities of young people differ greatly. Laws are very different in various societies, for example, in England you must be 17 to drive, whereas in many American states you can drive at 16.

▪ Social norms: Customs also vary. In England the average age for a female to marry is just over 27, whereas in Niger it is just over 17.

▪ Emotional/behavioural norms: whilst it is often believed that for all youth life is confusing and emotional, some sociologists such as

▪ Margaret Mead (1927) argued that this is not the case in every society. Mead claimed that Samoan young people did not have this period of turmoil.

“Childhood is a biological stage in life.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

“Adolescence will always be a difficult time in a person’s life.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

Margaret Mead- Growing Up In Samoa

For the anthropologist Margaret Mead the difficulties associated with adolescence in western societies have more to do with the role assigned to young people by western culture than with the biological changes involved in puberty. In western cultures, young people do not have a clear-cut role which is often the case in traditional cultures. Western teenagers have to endure a long period in which they are seen neither as children nor as adults. It is no wonder therefore that this time is often seen as a time of “storm and stress”.

Mead describes how in Samoa teenage girls are expected to take on responsibility for many activities associated with adult women such as looking after younger children, doing the cooking and cleaning etc. However, girls were also allowed the privileges as well, such as entering into sexual relationships earlier than was the case in the west.

Examples of rites of passage

Suri life: to become initiated into adulthood, Suri boys become “rora”, which includes acts of violence, insults from the elders of the tribe, having to complete menial tasks, being whipped and sometimes being starved. Through this process a boy becomes a man.

Dassanech life: to become initiated into womanhood, girls from 10-12 years of age are circumcised. This ceremony is conducted by the elder females in the tribe. Once this has been done, the girl then becomes recognised as a woman and is able to marry.

Debutantes: in England or upper-class girls used to become women when presented to society at a “coming-out ball”. In rich American families this tradition is off the mark with a large ceremony (debutante ball), where the girls wear white gowns and gloves and are individually introduced to the society audience of the ball.

Bar/Bat Mitzvah: Jewish boys and girls attend classes to learn about their religious heritage along with their future role as a Jewish mother or father. When they are 12 (for girls) or 13 (for boys), the young person is expected to show they have enough knowledge to take on their personal religious responsibility. At this stage a ceremony marks their transition to adulthood.

Identify and explain two rites of passage. [8]

The Disappearance of Childhood?- Neil Postman

Some sociologists such as Neil Postman (1983) believe that there is currently a disappearance of childhood. Because of the adult messages children see every day in the mass media, they become “confused little adults.” he called these children “tweenagers” and used the examples of underage drinking and smoking as evidence. Results from a survey by MINTEL found that by 14 years of age, 90% of girls are wearing some kind of make up (2004). Other contemporary evidence can be seen in girls' magazines such as Bliss and Cosmo Girl, which have given away vouchers for free tanning spray and contained articles on how to get a boyfriend. Such evidence has led to a debate over whether children are going through a loss of innocence. This is a world where children grow up fast, are aware of their own bodies and are worried about adult issues such as sexuality. However, not all agree that childhood has been eroded, especially when comparing life now to the 1800s.

“Childhood is disappearing.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

“The peer group is the most powerful agent of social control for young people.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

Identify and explain two reasons for the creation of “youth culture.” [8]

Mods and rockers and moral panics

Cohen has looked at how the press reported events at Clacton on Easter Sunday 1964. On this particular bank holiday, it was very cold and wet and there was some fighting between young people who had gone to the coast for a day of fun. A few ended up throwing stones at each other and breaking windows and some of these belonged to groups of motorbike riders called rockers or scooter riders called mods. The papers chose to report these disturbances as “riots” and “battles”. Cohen argues that they exaggerated events for two reasons:

1. The press often have very little news to report over a bank holiday and there is also a natural tendency for reporters to over dramatise events in the sensationalist, popular papers.

2. The press tend to take the same view as the police, magistrates and parents playing fairies seem to be a threat from gangs of youths. They overreact and amplify people's fears

When a society is undergoing rapid change, many people may feel anxious that their basic institutions and values are being undermined. They may focus their fears onto groups that can be blamed for society's ills. This phenomenon of a group becoming the object of exaggerated concern and fears has been termed a moral panic by sociologists. Cohen drew attention to the role of the media in creating and sustaining the moral panic about the mods and rockers who became “folk devils”, blamed for the break-down of law and order that many people of the older generation believed was happening.

“The media is responsible for the creation of youth subcultures.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

Case study: raves and the “new tribes” of the 1990s

In 1993 Alix Sharkey investigated some of the latest trends in the youth culture. Sharkey went to an all night rave held during the summer in a field in Hertfordshire. Among the 15,000 strong crowd as she reckoned that there were five “tribes”, each with their own style of dress and music, as well as their romance and customs:

▪ The Hardcore Nosebleed people wore baggy jeans, colourful tops and “mental” accessories (floppy hats, dummies, industrial face masks, handheld luminous bands).

▪ The Trendy-Trance tribe had a sharper look: short, well cut hair; hot pants and tank tops; label jeans and Caterpillar boots.

▪ The Eurotechno-Ambient crowd had a dark and mysterious image: slinky, sexy clothes with lots of black and silver.

▪ The Young Crusties had a recycled, patchwork look that was part raver, part punk and part New Age traveller.

▪ The Hippy Nouveau tribe had the latest, fashionable version of the Seattle “grunge” look: flared loons, Afghan coats and cheesecloth shirts, with lank shoulder-length hair and a distinct odour of patchouli.

McRobbie 1991- “Ragga girls”

While McRobbie’s early work focused mainly on the “culture of the bedroom” and the ways in which young women resisted subordination in the home, her more recent work reflects important changes in the position of young women and the cultural space they have claimed.

For example, she points to the way in which black “ragga” girls can use sexually explicit dancing in a way that ridicules male sexuality and reasserts female control. According to McRobbie, despite the sexism of the lyrics in some raga music, it is now possible for young black women to use this music to open up public cultural space for themselves.

“Girls do not have their own subcultures.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

Policing the Crisis

Hall (1978) and others conducted a study on the reasons for a wave of media reports in the 1970s about “mugging”. Street crime has existed for centuries, but the mass media’s use of the American word “mugging” portrayed the problem as a new crime- a crime predominantly carried out by blacks on whites. Black youth therefore came to be seen as a threat to law and order in Britain. Another example of a moral panic!

Mac an Ghail (1988) - Young Black and Gifted

Although anti-school subcultures are traditionally seen as characteristic of white working-class and Afro-Caribbean youth, Mac an Ghail’s study, Young, Black and Gifted, describes how an anti-school subculture called the Warriors existed alongside an Afro-Caribbean group, the Rastaheads. Because of the conformist reputation of the Asians, the Warriors got into far less trouble.

Identify and explain two subcultures. [8]

Phil Cohen’s (1972) study of the traditional working-class community in the East End of London attempted to decode the mod and skinhead youth subcultures. Cohen argues that the traditional working class community in the East End was in decline by the 1960s as traditional businesses and industries were destroyed by economic change. Rehousing, redevelopment and the influx of immigrants meant that traditional communities were broken up. In these circumstances, young East Enders sought to establish new identities for themselves. The skinheads and the mods represent alternative routes.

According to Cohen, the skinhead subculture symbolizes an attempt to

recover the working-class community which was passing away. Skinhead’s dress, with shaved heads, heavy boots, baggy trousers and braces, represents an exaggerated version of traditional working men’s clothes. Similarly, their attitudes and behaviour, typified by use of aggression and violence to defend their territory, combined with dislike of black people and middle-class youths such as hippies, could be seen as an exaggerated version of traditional working-class male values.

The mods, by contrast, reflect the upwardly mobile aspiration of a more affluent section of the working class who sought to copy the middle-class. Mods wore flashy Italian suits and drove scooters if they could afford them. They aspired to a glamorous lifestyle centred on nightclubs and dance music, using drugs such as “uppers” and “downers” to keep them going. In reality, few working-class mods could afford to indulge fully in this lifestyle. However, Cohen suggests that the style reflects a rejection of traditional working-class culture and attempt to embrace a more glamorous and cosmopolitan lifestyle

Identify and explain two types of gang. [8]

Eisenstadt: The functionalist view of youth subcultures

Eisenstadt argued that adolescence is a period of “limbo”. As a result, young people turn to their peers- young people of their own age who are experiencing the same problems and anxieties. Peer groups therefore perform an important function in providing support for young people in making the difficult transition from childhood to adulthood in industrial society. Eisenstadt’s ideas were the inspiration for the scout movement which began in the early 20th century.

Eisenstadt believed that an extended period of “youth” is required to socialise young people into the complex values and skills of modern society. Therefore society separates young people and allocates them a marginal, transitional status. But this can lead to confusion and identity problems for those young people. Eisenstadt argues that gangs provide them with a solution to these problems. It helps them to work out their identities and provides them with the necessary support and companionship during a difficult time in their growth.

“People join gangs because they have problems with their family.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

“People only join a gang because they are forced to.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

Albert Cohen- Status Frustration

Cohen studied gang behaviour in certain inner city areas. He noted that this behaviour was concerned with immediate gratification. The destructiveness evident in the behaviour of gangs- to which members exhibited great loyalty- indicated rejection of the norms and values of the wider society.

Cohen’s explanation for the behaviour of these gangs drew on the idea of “status frustration”. As they fail in school, some youths begin to recognise that they can’t “make it” by legitimate means. In order to attain “money success” valued by the rest of culture, such individuals would turn to crime and join with others of the same nature in time.

Activities such as stealing and vandalism become valued. The gang therefore takes revenge on wider society and provides its members with opportunities for success. Cheeking the teacher also offers the delinquent individual status in the eyes of his fellow delinquents.

Identify and explain two reasons why someone may join a gang. [8]

“Only boys join gangs.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

BBC2 Documentary- “Rude Girls”- Produced by Morgan Matthews

Many of the gangs that girls claimed to belong to didn't exist in a structured, hierarchical way. As for their antisocial actions, Matthews says: "I wouldn't say their behaviour is typical, but I would say that some of their attitudes are fairly typical."

He has no great theory about what gives rise to lives disrupted at so early an age. Death of a parent when the girls were able to appreciate loss, lack of male role models while they were growing up, and a distrust of advice and guidance - whether from family or school, social work, or courts - are all factors, he believes. Yet Matthews reckons the girls he filmed are not bad through and through.

"It's just a stage in their lives," he says. "It's not something they're going to be doing forever. I had my teenage episodes as well, you know. I had my daughter when I was 15, and I'm 25 now, so I know about those times, and I do know that people move on and I do think those girls will."

Ethnicity in school- The work of Gilbourn

Gilbourn focused on the way in which ethnic differences influenced how teachers perceived their pupils. He found that African-Caribbean pupils, both male and female, received a disproportionate amount of punishment and criticism from teachers. Even where pupils of different ethnic minorities were engaged in the same behaviour, it was the Afro-Caribbean children who were singled out for punishment.

Many teachers were unconscious of their behaviour in “labelling” these pupils as trouble-makers. However, once the initial label had stuck and was being constantly reinforced by those in authority (the teachers) it became a self-fulfilling prophecy. This was reflected in the number of report cards given to these pupils (37% had been on report compared with 6% of other ethnic minorities).

Townsend- Social and Material Deprivation

In his study of Londoners in 1987, Townsend distinguished between material and social deprivation.

• Material deprivation covered dietary deprivation, clothing deprivation, housing deprivation, deprivation of home facilities, deprivation of environment, deprivation of location and deprivation at work.

• Social deprivation covered lack of employment rights, deprivation of family activity, lack of integration into the community, lack of participation in social institutions, recreational deprivation and educational deprivation.

All of the above factors have been found to be factors influencing membership of gangs.

“Working class boys are more likely to join a gang.” Evaluate the arguments for and against this claim. [24]

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