The Formation of
Youth Subcultures
A subculture group
forms when the larger culture fails to meet the needs of a particular group of
people. They offer different patterns of living values and behaviour norms, but
there is dependence on the larger culture for general goals and direction
(unlike counter-cultures which seek to destroy or change the larger culture).
Subcultures try to compensate for the failure of the larger culture to provide
adequate status, acceptance and identity. In the youth subculture, youth find
their age-related needs met. It is a way-station in the life of the individual
- it is as if society permits the individual to 'drop out' for a period of
years and is even willing to subsidise the phase. However, for some people the
way-station becomes the place of permanent settlement. This is when a group
moves towards becoming a counter-culture.
Industrialisation
and the related social-psychological factors of modern industrial societies
caused the phenomenon of youth subcultures for the following reasons: (1) The
deepening of the division of labour separated the family from the processes of
modern production and administration. Youth is a further extension of the same
process of institutional separation or differentiation. With the industrial
revolution there arose an institutional structure that 'allowed room' for
youth. (2) With this division of labour there came an increasing specialisation
which led to a lengthening of the period of time that the individual needed to
spend in the educational system. Youth were separated from the process of
production by child labour laws. (3) The rise of modern medicine and nutrition
led to the sheer numbers of youth increasing. (4) The sheer complexity of
modern society has meant that different individuals lead vastly different
lives. When adults disappear into a strange world, reappearing for limited
contact with youth, a degree of estrangement results. This trend has caused
youth to become autonomous, establishing norms and patterns of their own that
are independent from the adult world. (5) Socialisation in modern societies is
characterised by high degrees of discontinuity and inconsistency. This produces
individuals who are not well integrated and a period of time is needed where
they can complete the process of socialisation - a time to find themselves,
hence adolescence.
A number of
different theories have been suggested for the formation of youth subcultures:
A. A Natural Part
of the Journey from Childhood to Adulthood
As discussed under
the youth culture section, there is a journey from childhood to adulthood.
Youth ban together for support into groups that function as half-way houses
between the world of being a child and the world of being an adult. Here youth
subcultures are about survival in an otherwise hostile world.
B. A Class Struggle
Expressed Through The Use of Style
In the resistance
through rituals understanding of culture the members are always striving
against dominant classes; older generations and against those who conform. They
are always trying to find ways to disrupt the ideological and generational
oppression in order to crease spaces for themselves. The resistance through
personal expression is often contrasted against the conformity of the
‘normals’. In many writings youth are counterposed against adults - they hate
and avoid adults and oppose them because they represent authority. A dichotomy
was created between, for example: Goths and Normals where Goths avoid and hate
adults, oppose adults who represent authority and are deemed to resist; while
Normals relate well to adults, consult adults with problems and are deemed to
conform. Linda Forrester in a web article speaks of youth generated culture
where visual communication is predominant and language is subservient to visual
means of communications. Visual cultures include: skateboarders; graffiti
artists; street dancers and street machiners which communicate through movement
or gesture. These are periphery groups empowered by the space that they have
created through visual representation. Their cultural production is recognised
by mainstream culture and in that recognition they are given power to speak.
The process empowers them and provides identity. Group control is managed
through the visual display of creative talent, ie, skaters out-skate each
other, graffiti artists out-image each other; street machines out-car each
other; street dancers fight each other through art. In mainstream culture
discourse is primarily verbal but in youth generated culture discourse is
primarily visual. It is through style that criticism of performance and image
occurs and it is through criticism that higher forms of visual representation
occur.
C. A Rebellion
Against the Dominant Culture Using Shock Tactics
Young people in
creating subcultures are setting out to shock. One of the key ways in which
they shock is through the clothes they wear. Oppositional subcultures (ie. Punk
and Hip-hop subcultures) are movements dedicated to rebellion against the
dominant culture.
D. A Construction
of New Identities Based on Individualisation
The new ideas in
youth culture suggest a more positive view of the role of youth in society.
Youth is viewed as an active category - a sociocultural view of youth is
introduced where youth are involved in the development of society through their
creations. Youth must be allowed to exercise the power to bring change - they
do so in their cultural expressions all the time. Youth culture is about
individualism - an expanding degree of separation of individuals from their
traditional ties and restrictions. As people have 'broken free' they feel a
need to look for fixing points - material with which to form a new social and
cultural identity. The motivation behind participating in the activities of a
subculture involves coping with suffering (the sense of loss at being cut off
from the past and hence one’s identity), ie. alienation, loneliness,
meaningless, etc. The motive is to be reinstated into responsive and responsible
relationships. The individualisation has produced post-traditional communities
- because they are focussed on the individual they are looser and more fluid
than traditional communities but they are still settings in which youth find
self-expression and identity. The subculture is an identity-related substitute
for the lost collective world of modernism but with the disintegration of
tradition, subcultures has lost their identity-creating potential. There is a
now a pluralisation of needs and interests that result from the process of
individualisation and culturalisation - so culture ruptures are normal. Not
only do these ruptures affect all social classes, but the traditional
generational gap is also blurred. Alongside individualisation there is a tendency
towards self-organisation - probably the new communities will be organised
around the needs of the individuals and their interests. Douglas Rushkoff, in
Playing the Future, suggests that as the world has become increasingly complex
the children have adapted to its demands, and they have the ability to navigate
it's terrain - adults must learn from them!
A whole new
approach to the field of subculture theory is emerging. It is an approach that
is critical of the subculture theory approach popular since the seventies.
Список литературы
Для подготовки данной работы были использованы
материалы с сайта http://www.homeenglish.ru/