1. Explanations of youth sub culture and deviant youth sub culture
 Functionalist
 Marxist
 Interactionist
 Post modernist
 Feminist
Aim
To provide an overview of each perspectives key beliefs with regard to Youth Culture
Functionalist
As a structural theory it suggests youth culture is functional and will be affected by the needs of
the State. Society has value consensus that most in society share. According to Talcot parsons we
internalise what society says is important and make it part of us however society must be able to
change so in individualistic cultures such as those in the west youths need a period of
experimentation so that they know how to test boundaries.
Culture helps bond us together and we will take aspects of our identity from the family but youth
culture help to broaden the individual’s horizons.
According to functionalists most youth cultures still have the core values of the dominant culture
Functionalists explain criminal youth cultures as happening because the young people still have
the desire to have status and power and commercial wealth but cant get it without breaking the
law.
Most youth cultures are male dominated and youth culture is more important for males to learn
about status hierarchies.
Albert Cohen and other sub-culturists suggest that marginalised young people will be attracted to
youth cultures because they do not have the same access as others to dominant cultures. If young
people have access to wealth and routes to power then they do not need to develop youth
cultures.
Marxists
According to Marxists youth cultures are a fight against capitalist domination they are a natural
consequence of capitalism.(Rushkoff)
Young people realise they are being exploited and try to fight back.

2. If you are born working class you are likely to have lower self esteem than upper class, an accent
that keeps you out of high society and less qualifications young men realise this and gang together
to fight back.
Marxists claim the consumer society maximises relative poverty and damages the value system of
the young.
Hebdige points to the way skin heads exaggerate the working class values and wear workers
clothes.
They also note how the teddy boys tried to ridicule upper class clothes by wearing a version of
them
Tony Sewell (1997) found that African Caribbean boys sometimes formed anti-school cultures.
They placed emphasis on their physical strength and rejected schoolwork. They followed
Rastafarian dress and had dreadlocks, listened to ragga and walked in a particular style. Their
behaviour was challenging and despite their ability, they did not pass examinations. They
subscribe to Gangster street identity and view material possessions as a source of status. This
results in Macho behaviour and social rejection, but is a compensation for their rejection by White
society.
Interactionist / labelling theory
Interactionist is a non structural theory and as such says there is interaction between people were
meanings are shared about what is important. This may then be incorporated into youth sub
cultural behaviours ,
The most important part of interactionism for you is labelling theory. According to labelling theory
an individuals identity will be strongly shaped by the labels others give him or her with youth sub
cultures a young person may see a label they want to have and actively take on the identity of the
group,
Once they are in the group all behaviour is a result of acting out the group identity,
Stan Cohen showed when the media became part of the labelling of youth culture negative
deviance amplification took place and some youth sub cultures where negatively labelled he
called this becoming folk devils.
Once they are in the group all behaviour is a result of acting out the group identity.
Stan Cohen showed when the media became part of the labelling of youth culture negative
deviance amplification took place and some youth sub cultures became folk devils.A self fulfilling
prophecy can happen when a person is labelled. Those labelling them will treat them differently
and the label will often be accepted by the person. they will then live up to the expectations
placed on them by others.

3. Post modernist
To the post modern sociologist identity is everything, However identity need not be a fixed thing
key features can be changed if the person wants them to be.
They believe that in modern society individuals can ‘pick and mix’ when it comes to choosing who
they are.
They can create their own narrative which will include the outward symbols of how they wish to
be perceived.
Youth cultures offer a variety of identities to try out and many people do try a number of youth
cultures .
Modern post modernist theorists claim that there are no longer any spectacular youth cultures
with fairly fixed rules but neo tribes which are far looser with regard to how you experience
membership.
When it comes to deviant youth cultures Katz claim traditional sociologists ignore the pleasure or
fun element that make it a fairly logical choice for those with limited options.
Young people no longer belong to spectacular youth cultures such as the Hippies but belong to
what Bennett called tribes or neo-tribes that are short lived. It is argued that the old subcultures
such as Rock and Roll represented rebellion and resistance to authority, but the neo-tribes are an
expression of style rather than commitment.
feminists
Gender is one of the primary aspects of a persons individual identity if not The primary factor.
According to feminists gender behaviour is shaped and channelled through the socialization
process. Many feminists believe that women are shaped into seeing themselves as second class
citizens and despite some recent changes this is still largely the case .
In youth cultures girls definitely play a secondary role in the defining of the youth culture.
This is especially so in the working class youth cultures which femists say mirror the patriachial
society that still exists in Britain.
Feminists say we live in a patriarchal society ie a society run by men for mens benefit.
Feminists say this is reflected by male sociologists have done little if any research into female
youth culture
Marxist feminists especially point to the effect of the consumer society on women's self image.
In the media women are depicted as sex objects or mothers.

4. The fashion and diet industries peddle impossible images for women to strive to achieve which
maintains profit for these industries but is disastrous to women's health and sense of identity
Another reason feminists say girls cant participate in wider youth culture as much is because
they are practically locked up. Ferried everywhere as children and raised to fear sexual abuse
from strangers almost to the exclusion of everything else. This gives them very little freedom
and so they make the most of it with bedroom culture
Angela McRobbie studied girls’ magazines in the 1970s and found that popular literature for
women passed on an ideology of home, domesticity and beauty to girls that was difficult for them
to challenge. She has since developed her views.
McRobbie is also associated with the notion of bedroom culture. She argued that girls resist male
domination through developing youth cultures that are domestic and in the home. Working class
girls enhance their femininity by talking about boyfriends, playing up teachers and smoking. This
traps them into low status work and future roles as mothers. She also suggests that black ‘ragga’
girls use sexually explicit dance to ridicule men and male sexuality. She is interested therefore in
notions of resistance.
Bathurst points out that name-calling, bullying, and gossip can be used as weapons to damage a
victims’ self-confidence.
Valerie Hey described a world in which girls use sexual innuendo ‘ugly’, slag’, ‘dyke’ to punish
those who stray out of line in terms of being ‘feminine’ and ‘normal’.