A Single Youth Culture

A Single Youth Culture

Youth culture and youth subcultures have been a subject of research

since the early 1930s. It is most certainly true today that there is

not one singular youth culture but a variety of different youth

subcultures. The 90's can not be described as the same as the 60's or

70's or even the 80's.There are many reasons put forward by

sociologists for this such as there are more styles available today,

media influences us more and there is a higher disposable income per

household to spend on fashions. This paper will explore the reasons

behind the existence of youth cultures in previous years and why the

same format has not occured in the 1990's.

Defining 'youth' can be difficult and is described in the Concise

Oxford

Dictionary as: "the state of being young, the period between childhood

and adult age" - Oxford Dictionary (1990). This would indicate that

youth is described as an age group and people can be distinguished by

the different age groups. However, it could be questioned that not all

children stop being children at the same time. Frith describes youth

as "not simply an age group, but the social organization of an age

group" Sociologists of youth, according to Frith, describe youth

culture as "the way of life shared by young people".

Subculture, as defined in the Concise Oxford Dictionary, is a

'cultural group within a larger culture often having beliefs or

interests at variance with those of the larger culture'. This would

imply that a subculture is a subdivision of a national culture; it

exists between the parameters of certain cultures. TalcottParsons saw

youth subcultures usually havin...

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... theirs. Both of these groups have a very

specific and useful function in a society. They both show the need for

change in a radical way, acting as a catalyst for social change.

However, nowadays it is valid to say that there are other ways of

expressing our hatred of norms. There are political parties and

pressure groups to join, there are a number of relaxational therapies

available and the use of psychologists is much more widespread.

All hope of meaningful cultural activity is denied; young people face

a future in which any genuine radicalism is quickly incorporated into

the commercial marketing system and used to sell more commodities.

Although there are a number of subcultures left in today's society

such as 'surfies', 'townies' and people who follow the grunge

movement, there is no singular youth culture left.