Neo-marxist explanations
Cards (7)
- Summary
- Neo-Marxists argue working class youths have conflicting interests with the middle and upper class
- WC youths may react to unemployment, poverty and material deprivation by forming a sub-subculture. They can express their class identity through shared norms and values
- 1st Neo-Marxist explanation of youth culture
- Resist capitalism- they may feel fraustrated with the inequality of capitalism
- Example: Punks studied by Hebdige resisted consumerism through bricoledge (DIY culture- using ordinary objects to create new meanings such as safety pin earrings)
- 2nd explanation of YC
- Attempt to improve status
- Example: Teddy boys studied by Jefferson wore Edwardian suit jackets traditionally worn by the upper classes to try and buy status through their disposable incomes from their blue collar jobs
- 3rd explanation of YC
- Express class identity, occupation is often important to a persons sense of self. Traditionally WC men had manufacturing jobs which declined in the 70s/80s
- Example: Chohen and Clarke studied late skinheads who wore braces and work boots to reflect manufacturing jobs
- 4th Neo-Marxist explantion
- ASSC's prepare WC boys for boring blue collar jobs
- Media and education spread norms and values that benefit upper and middle classes. Gramsci calls this cultural hegemony
- Willis studied the lads who joined ASSC's to help them to learn to cope with future boring jobs by having a 'laff'
- 5th Neo-Marxist explanation
- Young people think joing YC will provide a magical solution for social inequality
- Brake- Hippies argued young people are powerless in society and YC gives them power and control
- Hippies lived off student grants to resist capitalism
- 6th explanation
- The media creates moral panics about black youths in deviant subcultures
- Hall argues in the early 1970s a moral panic developed about Black muggers. The media exaggerated the number of muggings and argued MC created the moral panic to distract from economic crisis