“Youth Subcultures, Class And Gender. Discuss, Drawing On The Relevant Sociological Literature

As I defined in the opening paragraph, a culture is a distinctive structure of customs and civilisation of activities and values. “ Sociologists define culture as the values, beliefs, behaviour and material objects that constitute a people’s way of life” (Soyinka, 1991). A culture is also our social heritage, a bridge to the past and a guide to the future. Similarly subcultures “must exhibit a distinctive enough shape and structure to make them identifiably different from their ‘parent’ culture. They must be focused around certain activities, values, certain uses of material artefacts, territorial spaces etc” (The Subcul

Now that we have looked at the meaning of a culture and a subculture lets move on to the key factors, which effect in particular youth subculture. Age well in terms of youth subculture age is one of the key identifying elements. Youths identify with one and other based on similar age and life experiences. Youth subcultures tend to comprise of teenagers ranging from twelve or thirteen to mid twenties. Gender is another identifying element with a clear male and female membership. Finally class, it is very difficult to position people according to specific class i.e. working, middle, or upper class. While subcultures exist for all the class’s youth subcultures tend to be greatest in relation to the working and middle classes. Subcultures “ express and resolve, albeit magically, the contradictions which remain hidden or unresolved in the ‘parent’ culture (Cohen, 1980, 82-3).

ture reader pg 100). An example of these identifying characteristics would be the skinheads in England or the gothic groups seen in both Ireland and England who identify with one another by their style, behaviour, dress and music. However as well as showing characteristic differences a subculture must also show characteristic similarities to its ‘parent’ culture. A subculture is a cultural pattern that’s sets the group apart from some segment of a society’s population, for example gays or Rastafarians, but at the same time maintains strong links with its ‘parent’ culture. Look at how the members of these diverse subcultures continue close ties with home and family or even community look at Irish Sunday markets which are still a community

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