Sociology - Youth Culture

Researched by Clarke (1976)

• Wore an exaggerated version of traditional working class clothes
• This applied to both male and females
• Cropped hair, braces, half-mast jeans, Doc Marten boots
• Drug preference was alcohol
• Clothes represented both a caricature and a reassertion of solid male, working class toughness and values
• Response to a decline in working class inner-city communities during the late 1960's and early 1970's
• Threatened by the decline in large scale manufacturing and dock work
• Attempted to deal with large scale immigration into these areas by poorer Asians - particularly those from Pakistan
• They were racist in their outlook
• Tried to reclaim the territory they had "lost" through immigration - football violence allowed them to gain the 'ownership' of the club and the ground around it

Researched by Brake (1980)

• Mainly middle-class families
• Some were from working-class families
• Popular subculture for university students
• Rejected consumer culture - found it offensive
• Against the conservative attitudes of their parents
• They were keen to preserve the environment
• Many were vegetarians
• Many were also anti-war - particularly the Vietnam War
• Anti-nuclear weapons
• Associated with hallucinatory drugs - LSD
• 1967 Summer of Love - not violent
• Argued for a change in the way in which people thought

Research by Rimmer (2003)

• Started in late 1970's and early 1980's
• Tended to be more middle class
• Were seen as anti-punk
• The music they followed was seen as manufactured rather than 'raw' like Punk Rock
• Seen as more establishment than anti-establishment 
• Thought of as stylish, polished and chart orientated
• Began in the early 1980's - musical tastes included Spandau Ballet
• They came to the fore because Punk Rock was losing its ability to shock and make the news
• The media needed something on youth to focus on. They realised that they needed youth culture to sell newspapers, magazines and keep TV ratings up.
• Ted Polhemus' "Streetstyle": "What was needed was a predominantly white, zany but politically inoffensive, flamboyant, overdressed style-tribe which would provoke wry chuckles of disbelief rather than serious concern"

Researched by Frith (1978) Brake (1980)

• Claimed to be anarchists - meaning 'without rules'
• Outrageous style of dress - ripped trousers, zips, hairstyle, safety pins
• Making a statement targeted at the ruling elite
• Emphasised their anti-establishment ideas
• Responded to the dominance of the media, fashion and music industries e.g. boy bands
• Frith suggests they were mostly working-class
• Brake suggests that they crossed the class divide and were also lower middle class
• Wanted to make a social and a political statement
• Reacted against the social environment of the late 1970's -high unemployment/low wages
• It was 'dole queue' rock-followed by young people claiming unemployment benefits
• Wanted to shock

Research by Jefferson (1976)

• Relatively well off - earned high wages
• Working class families - disposable income
• Wore Edwardian style suits
• Adopted an exaggerated middle class style of dress - allowed them to express their changing social situation
• Showed an interest in style and fashion
• If insulted became aggressive and violent
• The girls wore skirts and outfits adopted from the American Rock and Roll culture

Researched by Hodkinson (2002)

• Originated from punk and called Positive Punks and Posi-Punks
• Started in the early 1980's
• Formed from disaffected Punks and New Romantics
• These were seen to have become commercialised
• Joy Division, Bauhaus, and Killing Jake were the bands of choice
• The Bat Cave Club opened in London and gave them somewhere to focus their musical tastes and style
• Eventually moved around the country as the Bat-Cave went on tour
• The main influences for style and fashion were probably Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Cure and the Bate-Cave
• Ian Astbury of the band The Southern Death Cult and The Cult said that: "It came more from glam than from any kind of grave robbing. It was just a reaction against the New Romantics, because they were just so posey and shallow"
• There was also a flirtation with pre-Nazi decadence, that sultry, smokey period from late '20's Berlin that was very androgynous