Mainstream Youth Subcultures

While these white punks were able to return to their middle-class, financially stable lives, many minorities had no choice but to live in the cheap apartments they were offered at the time. Although the intention of the white punks may have been to unify all races under the label of ‘punk’, they actually reinforced clear differences between the two groups. The lifestyle became a desired object to white privileged punks into which they launched themselves head-on. The white punks desired to internalize the struggle rather than be contradictory by singing about it and not actually living it. White punks believed that by doing this, they were not only eliminating race within the punk subculture, but they were also furthering their own participation within the subculture by creating a “self-imposed minority”2 and an “appropriation of Otherness”2.

The early 1960’s to mid 1970s was the start of the counterculture of youth culture. During the 1960’s, there were revolutions including a sexual revolution, a cultural/ racial revolution, a rights revolution, and student revolutions. In addition to revolutions, there also a focus on the transition to adulthood, popularity, consumption, anxiety, and the media. However the movie, American Graffiti, which was set in the 1962 (1960s)–before the peak of 1960’s counterculture–and released in 1973 (1970’s) displays an environment more focused on the anxiety of transitioning to adulthood, dating, and consumerism--music and cars. American Graffiti compared to the set and release dates share similarities with the counterculture, but are depicted in

Some of those youths spent that income on new fashions popularized by American soul groups, soon enough these youths became known as mods, a youth subculture noted for its consumerism and devotion to fashion and music and in the 1970s and 80s the youth subculture of the skinheads was formed. • This is England (2006) depicts an honest and accurate account of the subculture of ‘skin heads during the 1980s, after the Falkland’s war so their clothing no doubt an expression of youthful angst in a troubled era. • Jeans, shirts, braces and doc Martens became iconic clothing amongst the skinhead subculture and their shaved heads on both men and woman signified defiance against society. The clothing was ‘media of information’ (Barnard, 21, 2007) about the person who is wearing it. • These items acted as a code that needed a decryption in order to understand what kind of person is underneath it.

When you picture a teenager you picture fighting, drinking, or answering back, am I right? However, this is simply not the case. Sure there is the minority of trouble makers. However this minority is exaggerated due to the news showing only this behaviour. This stereotyping has found its audience and crept into television shows and series. This has led to the creation of a mockumentary called “Summer Heights High” which has unfairly represented teen

The 1950’s was a time of great social change. The word, ‘teen-ager’ was recently coined and applied to people aged thirteen to nineteen. During this decade, people’s perception of youth and adolescents drastically changed as children became more rebellious. Previous to 1950. society consisted of two main stages of human development: children and adults. When the Baby Boom started in 1946, producing more babies, a new era of music, attitudes, practices, and dance began to appeal to kids that did not feel socially accepted by adults in society. This was the start of the teenage rebellion. With increased teenager presence came more disapproval because of rebellious behaviour. Teenagers were pitted against media, parents, and local authority. Teenagers started disobeying parents, getting expelled from school, and fighting back against authority. Indeed, the ‘50s were a time that saw upheavals towards the impact of the music, change of attitudes, new fashions, and new dances developed children into teenagers.

The following paper will discuss prison gangs. From early prison gangs and their effects on the community to present gangs and their effects on the community. It will discuss the types of crimes that are committed by these gangs. The ability for these gangs to reach out to their counterparts on the outside of prison walls is tremendous. These gangs in our prison system can still cause chaos in our communities and influence our youth population.

The 1950s in the United States started to steer into a different course. In this decade conformity became a concept to rebel against. Not only is this seen with racial issues of segregation and the feminist movement pushing for female rights, it also applies to entertainment medias such as novels, movies and television, and art. During this time people changed previous time’s ideals and strove for change which sparked the cultural and social rebellions in the 1960s. Cold War tensions in the 1950s lead to an amazing movement in abolishing segregation and discrimination against minorities in the United States.

I am writing to you because I find it impossible to understand why ‘Educating Essex’ represents teenagers in this such way to society today, it only makes an impression of them, that “all Britain’s teenagers are goby, impolite, spoilt and lacking enough self-discipline to interact with anyone.” This supports stereotypes of modern reckless teens, when in reality “the majority of Britain’s teenagers are interesting, polite and simply brilliant young people quietly going about the business of creating a bright future for themselves.”

Marxist writers, especially those associated with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) studies youth sub-cultures in the 1970's. They saw working-class youth cultures linked to the

Today’s youth grew up in the digital revolution when the Internet first became a public space. This (relatively) new and ever-expanding medium resulted in an explosion of the availability of information and new ideas. These ideas would serve as a catalyst to mold many aspects of present-day society. They established and cemented new ideas as real norms that further challenged societies’ perception of ideal norms. From this ideological explosion and conglomeration of contemporary conceptions of a nationally connected society came both the constructive and the controversial. The later included such groups as: otherkin, headmates, the never-ending stream of new gender identities, and the phenomenon of self-diagnosis of mental illness.

Throughout society, gangs and gang affiliation have become a major issue in society for a substantial amount of time. As gang activity has become a common threat in society today, determining the reasoning behind individuals partaking in this crime holds great significance. Based off studies, it has been shown that gangs tend to occur “in city slums characterized by physical deterioration, rapid succession of inhabitants, mobility, and disorganization; along economic and ecological boundaries; along political frontiers; … and during adolescence” (Kornhauser, 1978, 51). Since gangs predominately exist within areas that are affected by poverty, society tends to ‘turn a blind eye’, as they do not acknowledge the seriousness of the issue at hand.

With the economic decline and availability of jobs with upward movement, a culture of youths formed in Britain that challenged the ideals and cultural norms of the generations that came before them. A consistent movement from traditional society through youth subcultures brings light through the eyes of the musicians that describe their generation’s feelings of homelessness in an era filled with unemployment, low wages, and violence. The insurgence of the counterculture movement, poor economic conditions, and the commercialization of previous Rock and Roll music in Britain directly led to the punk subculture because it allowed youths to speak up about their conditions and frustrations through an easily understood and accessible medium while maintaining a different stance than their predecessors.

Some members of delinquent gangs may be the sole carriers of a particular subculture in a particular location, and some are shared. For example conflict subcultures are shared by rival fighting gangs among whom individual and group status involves values related to defense of turf and reputation and norms loyal of these values. Some subcultures oriented to theft and other forms of property crime which they are connected with a particular group. Some property crime involves more organizing and planning in order to succeed. Other crimes such as mugging may involve only one person who shares the same subculture as the larger group. In an article by Terry William’s it states that delinquent subcultures contain elements of both youth and adult cultures. It also stated that to speak of youth culture is to symbolize a subculture of the larger adult-dominated and institutionally defined culture (1989). Many of criminal subculture shares a symbolic relationship with their customs, manly the people

Culture is the characteristics and knowledge of a particular group of people. It is learned and transmitted from one generation to the next. Culture will change as situations and the needs of people change. A school environment itself constitutes a subculture within a larger society. Each school has a culture of its own, like a minuscule society. The school culture reflects the community in which the school is located and its students’ characteristics. This will consist of the values, attitudes, beliefs, norms, and customs of those making the system. This is because of the racial and socioeconomic segregation of residential communities. A school’s culture is formed by its history context and the individuals in it. Each school has a

The teddy boys in the 1950s and 60s wore Edwardian suits and cropped hair, and created violence on the streets. Next were the Mods and the Rockers of the 1960s, the former dressed up in tailored suits and desired to be the upper class whereas the latter wore leather jackets and went against the upper class principles. Britain’s declining economy and the immigration of foreigners led to the emergence of the violent Skinheads who were extreme nationalists and racists. British media theorist and sociologist Dick Hebdige wrote in his book subculture: the meaning of style that “we are interested in subculture , the teddy boys and mods and rockers, the skinheads and the punks – who are alternately dismissed, denounced, canonized; treated at different times as threats to public order and as harmless buffoons (1979,