Functionalists claim that people need to feel part of society in order to belong. They call this integration. Without integration, society will break down, and social breakdown is known as 'anomie'. If too many people lack a sense of belonging then no-one knows the rules, so levels of crime and suicide rise.
Parsons (1954) says young people detach themselves from their parents and achieve their own independent sense of integration to wider society. Youth culture provides a bridge betwen childhood and adulthood and is a 'rite of passage' that all youths go through. Children learn to establish their own identities and can develop ideas and values different to those learned at home.
Eisenstadt (1956) supports this and suggested that youth is a time of stress and anxiety caused by the changing norms of becoming an adult. Young people rely on each other so youth culture provides an outlet for tensions and binds young people together.
Theodore Roszak (1969) is a critic of Parson's theory, he argued that a social divide was emerging the older and younger people, the generation gap. Age was becoming more significant than social differences.
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