Post Marxism
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Still concentrates on social institutions and is still structural rather than looking at individuals

Structural approach

Traditional functionalists

Youths have to find way of moving on from childhood to adulthood

Youth culture provides link between conflicting values of home (childhood) and work (adulthood)

Eisenstadt suggests young people try to distinguish themselves from their parents, but being different leaves emotionally insecure. In response to this insecurity, they create distinct sets of values and styles of dress. By doing this, they distinguish from parents and have standard to compare against.

Comparison with Marxist approach

Contents of youth culture are unimportant and need no further analysis

Differences in backgrounds of young people and between various subcultures are unimportant

POSTMARXIST APPROACH

Marxists stress importance of above stuff

Hegemony: imposition of ruling class values on society

Youth: majority of people have financial commitments so they are scared to revolt as they have too much to lose. Youth don’t have these and are therefore weakest point in structure of hegemony

Resistance through style: whilst functionalists argue each generation has same problem of transition, Marxists argue each generation of WC has similar problems. Each has different economic circumstances

Brake and Hebdige: culture developed to cope with problems, styles, reflects circumstances

Youth culture doesn’t alter power and economic differences that caused problems for WC in 1^st place: Brake uses term ‘magical’ to describe solution provided by WC youth culture

Youth culture contains some of resistance to dominant ideas

WC culture often regarded as deviant and threat to society

Style adopted to work out problems and express resistance

An Example of Marxist Subculture Approach

Cohen East London 1970’s

Looked at youth cultures in (a) immediate context and (b) wider context

Immediate Context

Society in East London destroyed by:

Redevelopment: People moving to new towns/high-rise, community street life lost. Property price rise, small workshops, local businesses driven out.

Loss of jobs on docks: Economy of East End based on docks. When docks declined, economic structures community props destroyed.

Decline of extended family: Partly due to above factors. Community lost furthermore – affects youth.

Wider Context

Ownership of houses and consumer goods risen. Ideology of affluence begins. Ran alongside poverty in inner city.

Youth cultures develop to cope with loss of community and social divisions

WC youths either remained in WC or moved towards affluence

Factors that Cohen found with white WC in UK in 70’s are found in poor black males in US cities now.

In both cases, redevelopment, move away from city centres, decline in well paid employment, increase in lone mother families

SUMMARY OF MARXIST SUBCULTURE THEORY

New Marxist approaches added important insights into older, no longer appropriate theories in 60’s

Stressed that style had meaning, interpretable by sociologists

Activities by youths cannot be understood without reference to wider society.

Other Notes in this Category

1. Functionalism & Anomie
2. Post Marxism
3. Richard A. Cloward
4. Suicide

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