Youth Subculture Azimi Hamzah Subculture -- Concept A

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Youth Subculture

• Azimi Hamzah

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Subculture -- Concept

• A social-cultural formation that exists as a sort
  of island within the larger society
• Meaning systems, modes of expression, lifestyles
• Developed by groups in subordinate structural
  positions in response to dominant or larger
  systems
• Reflect the groups attempt to solve
  contradictions rising from the wider society

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Significance of subculture to youth

• Extension to larger culture
• Opposition to larger culture
• Solution to structural dislocations
• Offering symbolic elements to construct identity
• Majority of youth pass through life without
  significant involvement in deviant subcultures

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Elements of Subculture

• Relatively unique values and norms
• A special slang not shared with society
• Separate channels of communication
• Unique styles and fads
• Hierarchy of social patterns
• Receptivity to charisma of leaders

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Formation of youth subcultures

• When larger culture fails to meet the needs
• Industralization modern societies contribute
  to
• Institutional structure of specialization
• Lead to extended education
• Advance nutrition widen age period
• Mother not mom, father not dad

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Theories related to formation of youth subcultures

• Journey from childhood to adulthood survival in
  otherwise hostile world
• Class struggle expressed through use of style
  striving against dominant class, older generation
  and those who conform
• Rebellion through use of shock tactics through
  clothes and wear like punk and hip-hop
• Construction of new identity based on
  individualism alienation, loneliness,
  meaningless

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The increase of youth subcultures

• Size of society
• Rate of change in society
• Globalization in society
• Position of youth in society
• Generational size in society

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Features of youth subculture

• Features include style/fashion, language, music,
  rebellious symbols, identity
• Class/family and youth subcultures
• Working class -- more of gang activity, more
  emphasis on fashion
• Middle to upper class more of special interest
  such as sports, computers, smart cars, sound
  system
• Music and youth subcultures
• Groups can be identified with specific music
  genre hip hop, hippies, black metal

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Types of youth subcultures

• Stable subcultures functional, hierarchical,
  and age based
• Developing subcultures those roles that become
  more or less important to the lives of the young
  people
• Counter cultures those that contradict or
  confront the larger/mainstream culture also
  referred to as oppositional subcultures

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Variety of youth subcultures

• Achievers, intellectuals, image conscious, heavy
  metal, hippies, average teenager, religious,
  punk, trendy, rappers, satanist, nerds, skinhead,
  traditionalist, sporty
• I really hate an adult to understand me. That is
  our strength. We need to mystify and worry them

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Subculture as Meaning-Making

• The study of subcultures, therefore, is in large
  part the study of conflict and the struggle for
  meaning in Western capitalist societies.
  (Abowitz, ?)

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What Can You Tell from These?
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Hip Hop Subculture

• What can you tell about hip hop style by looking
  at these images of hip hop artists?
• While these artists only represent a small
  sampling of hip hop styles, what can you tell
  about the costume, accessories, jewelry, and
  artifacts of hip hop subcultural members?
• What about the demeanor of these groups what
  attitude do they communicate with their
  expressions and postures?

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What Does Subculture Provide?

• As Brake summarizes, youth subcultures provide
  particular functions for the young
• They offer a solution, often at a 'magical' or
  illusionary level, to certain structural problems
  created by the internal contradictions of a
  socio-economic structure, which are collectively
  experienced. The problems are often class
  problems experienced generationally.

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What Does Subculture Provide?

• They offer a culture, from which can be selected
  certain cultural elements such as style, values,
  ideologies and life style. These can be used to
  develop an achieved identity outside the ascribed
  identity offered by work, home or school.

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What Does Subculture Provide?

• As such, an alternative form of social reality is
  experienced, rooted in class culture (often), but
  mediated by neighborhood, or else a symbolic
  community transmitted through the mass media.
• Subcultures offer, through their expressive
  elements, a meaningful way of life during
  leisure, which has been removed from the
  instrumental world of work.
• Subcultures offer to the individual solutions to
  certain existential dilemmas. This involves style
  to construct an identity outside work or school
  (from Brake,1985, p. 24).

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The Variety of Youth Subcultures

• In Britain in the 1980s the following groups of
  youth were identified Casuals, Rastas, Sloans,
  Goths, Punks and Straights.
• In South Africa in the 1990s the following youth
  subculture groups were identified Socialite,
  Striver, Traditionalist, Independent, Uninvolved,
  Careful and Acceptor.
• In 1995 a market research project discovered that
  within the Black youth culture there are three
  main subcultures the Rappers, Pantsulas and the
  Italians. While within the White youth subculture
  only thirty percent of youth identify with a
  subculture and the subcultures are far more
  numerous alternatives, Punks, Goths, Technoids,
  Metalheads, Homeboys, Yuppies, Hippies and
  Grunge.

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The Variety of Youth Subcultures

• The following subculture groups were identified
  by students studying at the Baptist Theological
  College in South Africa Achievers
  Intellectuals Belongers Image-Conscious Very
  Poor Models Heavy Metal Dudes Rugby Boys
  Metalheads Hippies Mainstream Average
  Teenager Fashion Fanatic Intellectuals
  Physical Clubers Family Centered Workaholics
  Pleasure Seekers Hobby Fanatics Religious
  Freaks Head Banger Punk Home Boys Skater
  Gothics Yuppies Trendys Rappers Club-Hoppers
  Metal Heads Socialites Independents
  Uninvolved Carefuls Socialites - Pantsulas
  Mapanga (Punks) Mapantsula Strivers Comrades
  Preppy Outrageous Sexy Sporty
  Gothic/Satanists Nerds Intellectual Strivers
  Socialites Jokers Gangsters Independents
  Traditionalists Teenyboppers Trendy Group Arty
  Type Alternative Group Drug Culture Gay
  Culture Squatters/Vagrants Culture.

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Subcultures in Malaysia

• Can you name some?