Performances of social class,race and gender through youth subculture: putting structure back in to youth subcultural studies

This paper aims to advance debates in youth studies about the contemporary relevance of social structures of class, race and gender to the formation of youth subcultures. I demonstrate how drawing on a cultural class analysis and education literature on learner identities and performativity can be productive in theorising the continued significance of class, and indeed also race and gender in young people's lives. In examining school-based friendships and (sub)cultural forms through empirical research in urban schools, I argue that not only are young people's subcultural groups structured by class, race and gender but also they are integral to the production of these identities. By examining the discursive productions of two school-based subcultures as examples: the ‘Smokers’ and the ‘Football’ crowd, I further argue that these identity positions embody resources or capitals which have differing value in the context of the urban school and thus demonstrate how race, class and gender privilege are maintained and reproduced through youth subculture.     

Comparing the Social Attitudes of Young Adult Evangelicals in Canada and the United States: Differences in Subcultural Boundaries among Evangelical School Graduates

In this study, we examine social trust and the social attitudes of young adult evangelicals in the United States and Canada to better understand how national context shapes these attitudes. While some differences are predictable in light of national cultural differences, other differences between Canadian evangelical school graduates and American evangelical school graduates do not mirror national differences in the larger population of public school graduates. Here we suggest that differences are better understood by the ways evangelicals draw selectively from their cultural (and religious subcultural) repertoires to create unique boundaries. In general, we find lower levels of social trust and more restrictive subcultural boundaries in the United States.     

Our favourite melodies: musical consumption and teenage lifestyles

The present study explores the determinants and lifestyle correletes of musical preferences among a large sample of high school students in Toronto, Ontario. Our work is informed by theory and research on cultural stratification and adolescent subcultures. In terms of cultural stratification, we engage with Bourdieu's (1984) and Peterson's (1996) conceptualizations of elite taste, while subcultural theory encourages us to focus upon more dissenting tastes and to explore connections between musical tastes and peer group activity. Our findings suggest that racial and ethnic identity, school experiences and cultural capital are significant sources of variation in musical tastes that loosely correspond to existing typologies; they also confirm what has often been inferred - that musical tastes and peer group cultural practices are closely linked. Our findings are then discussed in the light of current debates about the nature and dimensions of listening audiences for music.     

Preventing damage: The psychology of crisis communication buffers in organized sports

Sports crisis communication is a growing field of study, with research focusing on the image repair of athletes and teams, fan solidarity during crises, and the role of mass and new media in crisis development. However, reflecting a broader tendency in crisis communication to emphasize the study of response strategies at the expense of other factors, sports crisis communication research has not examined the unique factors in sports that prevent crises from causing severe image and reputation damage. In this paper, we apply Coombs’ notion of buffers to argue for new attention to two particularly important buffers in sports: communities and political economy. These buffers often preclude the need for any response at all, and crisis communication practitioners would do well to implement them around their own sports teams to prevent damage from crises.     

Claiming Queer Territory in the Study of Subcultures and Popular Music

For both the heterosexual and queer subject, subcultural participation and stylistic modes of cultural production and consumption, including popular music, are critical mechanisms aiding in the construction and expression of identity. Yet, in spite of abundant empirical examples of queer music cultures, subcultural studies scholars have paid minimal attention to queer sexualities and their concomitant stylistic modalities. In this article, I claim the importance of queer subterranean music cultures by synthesising significant literatures from various fields of inquiry including cultural sociology, popular musicology and queer studies. To begin, I will briefly clarify to whom and about what queer (theory) speaks. I then go on to offer an overview of subcultural and popular music research paying particular attention to the subaltern queer subject and surveying queer criticism within each field. Accordingly, I discuss various sites of popular music production and subcultural style such as punk and hip‐hop, to show how non‐heterosexual subjects carve space for resistant queer sexualities and merge queer sensibilities with pre‐existing cultural forms. This article consolidates interdisciplinary approaches that will benefit scholars invested in the study of queer subcultures and popular music.     

Conceptualizing Cultural Politics in Subcultural and Social Movement Studies

In this article it is argued that combining theories of social movements and subcultures provides a way of 'conceptualizing cultural politics'. The focus is on debates that have taken place over the conceptualization of subcultures and social movements as well as the status and viability of cultural politics. Contemporary subcultural theorists are critical of the rigid concepts used by the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) but, it is argued, they provide few feasible alternatives. They also have little to say about the supposed contemporary significance of cultural politics. New social movement (NSM) theorists, on the other hand, have generated conceptual frameworks that recognize the complexity of collective phenomena and have developed an approach which enables us to engage with the controversy over cultural politics. However, they concentrate too narrowly on struggles waged at the level of lifestyle, culture and civil society. The article shows how, like the CCCS, critics of NSM theory rightly question the potency of symbolic challenges and stress the persistent role of material issues and the continued part that conventional political actors, such as the state, play in contemporary social conflicts. Finally, the case of New Age Travellers is used to illuminate these debates in subcultural and social movement studies and to show how elements of each approach can be employed fruitfully in empirical research.     

Regrounding Youth Cultural Theory (in Post‐Socialist Youth Cultural Practice)

This article considers how the study of youth cultural practice in Eastern Europe informs theoretical and empirical debate about youth culture. It charts the trajectory of academic writing on East European youth cultures and suggests the region’s state socialist past (which made social inequalities relatively insignificant at a time when, elsewhere, youth cultural studies were dominated by class‐based readings) combined with the explosion of inequality in the post‐socialist period (by which time class‐resistant post‐subcultural theories led anglophone academic discussion), makes it an interesting vantage point from which to reconsider academic paradigms. Drawing on empirical examples of youth cultural practice in (post)‐socialist Eastern Europe, it argues for a perspective that integrates structural and cultural factors shaping young people’s lives. It suggests moving forward western theoretical debates – often stymied in arguments over nomenclature (‘subculture’, ‘postsubculture’, ‘neo‐tribe’) – by shifting the focus of study from ‘form’ (‘subculture’ etc.) to ‘substance’ (concrete cultural practices) and attending to everyday communicative, musical, sporting, educational, informal economy, and territorial practices. Since such practices are embedded in the ‘whole’ rather than ‘subcultural’ lives of young people, this renders visible how cultural practices are enabled and constrained by the same social divisions and inequalities that structure society at large.     

Barriers to inclusive education in Greece,Spain and Lithuania: results from emancipatory disability research

Inclusive education is a key aspect of the European Disability Strategy 2010–2020. The aim of this study is to give voice to three local organisations of people with disability and for people with disability in Spain, Lithuania and Greece, discussing the EU policy for inclusive education in relation to personal experiences and national policies, as part of the Able’20 European project. The points of view of 58 young people with disabilities were collected through the ‘theatre of the oppressed’ approach as an emancipatory disability research tool, aiming at the empowerment of young people with disabilities and their organisations. The voices of young people show the presence of physical barriers alongside more challenging cultural and institutional barriers, which strongly limit access to inclusive education, showing an opposite trend to the EU policy, and overshadowing the social model of disability.     

That's Not Fair!: The Social Construction of Organizational (In)Justice among Professionals

Building on the work of organizational justice researchers, this research is an attempt to come to a greater understanding of the social construction of perceived injustice among professionals employed in large, bureaucratic organizational structures. It suggests that professional employees experience a perceived injustice in an organizational workplace outcome, procedure, or interaction when a likely, positive, and valued expectation has been violated or unfulfilled. These expectations are socially constructed from various organizational "stocks of knowledge" available to professionals. These include: (1) organizational cultural norms; (2) professional occupational subcultural norms; and (3) employee prior work experiences. The research suggests that in instances of perceived injustices in organizational outcomes, professionals'expectations are primarily rooted in organizational cultural norms for the allocation of such outcomes. In instances of perceived injustices in organizational procedures, professionals'expectations are primarily rooted in prior work experiences surrounding such procedures and processes, while in instances of perceived injustices in organizational interactions, professionals'expectations are primarily rooted in professional occupational subcultural norms surrounding such interactions.     

Homosexually Active Latino Men:

This paper presents a critical overview of the literature on homosexual conduct and identity among Latino men both in Latin America and in the United States. The relationships between homosexually active Latino men and their families, the various Latino national origin communities, and gay communities are also considered. Latino perspectives are contrasted with the dominant North American gay understandings of homosexuality in terms of individual identity and political activism. The unique problems of this population are also discussed with an emphasis on the social and cultural resources available to homosexually active Latinos and social work practitioners who serve them. Recommendations for social work practice and further research are offered.     

Class,place and mobility beyond the global city: stigmatisation and the cosmopolitanisation of the local

ABSTRACT

This paper draws on a multi-sited qualitative study of youth in regional Australia to explore the contemporary relationship between class, place attachment, and the imperative towards mobility and cosmopolitanism. The paper shows how local classed identities shape how young people situate themselves and their localities in relation to the rest of the world, and how experiences of mobility produce classed attachments to place. Here, place is made meaningful within the broader cultural politics of inequality in neoliberalism, in which the moral denigration of figures of the working class come to stand for the disadvantage currently associated with regional places. However local classed histories offer some young people the capacity for resistance, whilst others are unable to reframe their localities in positive terms. Moreover, whilst cosmopolitanism is a mode of classed distinction across the two research sites, this can be enacted either through practices of mobility, or through the repositioning of the local in cosmopolitan terms through the identity practices of middle-class youth. The paper therefore reveals new ways in which local social and economic histories offer young people different ways in which to relate to notions of mobility as well as to reconstruct the meaning of their home.     

Continuity,change and complexity in the performance of masculinity among elite young footballers in England

Following recent research evidencing that young men are redefining the essential components of what it is to be a man, this paper draws on qualitative interviews with 22 elite‐level, English Premier League academy level football (soccer) players to investigate their performances and understandings of masculinity in relation to decreasing homohysteria. Even in this gender‐segregated, near‐total institution, these working‐class, non‐educationally aspiring adolescents evidence an attenuated performance of ‘maleness’ and improved attitudinal disposition toward homosexuality. Congruent with insights developed by inclusive masculinity scholars, respondents maintained emotional closeness and physical tactility with male teammates and friends. These more inclusive attitudes and homosocial behaviours were, however, slightly more conservative than in other recent research. We close by explaining this variation with reference to theoretical apparatus’ provided by Goffman and Bourdieu to advance theoretical debates about social class and masculinities.     

Vocational Psychology and New Challenges

A discussion group composed of vocational psychologists, guidance professionals, and career development specialists from around the world identified and discussed new challenges in understanding work and providing relevant career services. Four major themes emerged: What revisions are necessary in the profession's theory and practice to address changes in the nature of work and be more inclusive? How is culture to be addressed? What will help in the advancement from social justice rhetoric to meaningful practice? How can research continue to advance the field?     

“Bridging Several Worlds”: The Process of Identity Development of Second-Generation Ethiopian and Eritrean Young Women in Canada

This paper explores the social and cultural experiences of second-generation Ethiopian and Eritrean young women in relationship to expectations surrounding identity continuity by way of maintenance of traditional culture. From the analysis of ten in-depth interviews, complexities in family relationships emerged as a major category with interrelated concepts that particularize the social and cultural experiences of second-generation Ethiopian and Eritrean women with their process of identity formation. These included gendered intergenerational relationships whereby Ethiopian and Eritrean parents maintained a strong sense of belonging to the larger culture they left behind and raised their daughters with such expected continuity; and the confrontation of cultural resistance through communication as a means of forging a balance between conflict and consensus in families. Findings from this study highlight the need to expand understandings in the scope of intergenerational activities and values in immigrant families in both research and clinical practice. This necessitates that practitioners take into account the structure and composition of family, the values imbedded within, and the role and functions of each member of the unit. This cannot be decontextualized from the family’s experiences of migration and ongoing settlement process.     

Researching ethnic ‘others’: conducting critical ethnographic research in Australia and Scotland

In many parts of the world, classrooms are characterised by cultural and ethnic diversity. Increasingly, researchers are interested in exploring these rich and socially complex contexts. However, research into ‘the ethnic other’ can present complex ethical and methodological challenges. In this paper, the authors discuss, with reference to their respective studies in Australia and Scotland, their mission to give voice and agency to research participants and develop research relationships that reduce the power imbalance between researcher and researched. They conclude by suggesting that critical ethnographic research methods can assist in alleviating some of the difficulties inherent in research conducted in contexts where researchers are cultural outsiders. The authors also argue the need for protocols to be developed for research into ethnic minority communities.     

The Grass is Always Greener: Explaining Rural and Urban Differences in Marijuana Use

Abstract

This paper investigates residential differences in self-reported marijuana use among adolescents and young adults in a national sample. Data from the first five waves of the National Youth Survey are examined using a pooled time-series cross-sectional research design. Based on these data, significant residential differences in self-reported marijuana use are found. Specifically, rural youths report lower levels of marijuana use relative to their non-rural counterparts (i.e., suburban or urban residents). Hypotheses from determinist, compositional and subcultural explanations of rural-urban behavioral differences are discussed and tested empirically. While variables from each theoretical model explain some variance in marijuana use, only variables from subcultural theory can fully account for differences in the marijuana smoking behavior patterns of rural and non-rural residents.     

Distinctions in the making: A theoretical discussion of youth and cultural capital

The aim of this paper is to address the dynamics of contemporary cultural capital by interrogating what counts for young people as valuable cultural resources. Considerable support is given in later scholarship for Bourdieu’s model of the social space, as the overall volume of economic and cultural capital combined is regularly found to be the most important axis of opposition, just as in Bourdieu’s work Distinction. Yet, while Bourdieu found the second axis to be structured by an opposition between those with cultural rather than economic capital, and vice versa, many later studies instead find oppositions between the young and the old to structure the second axis. Up till now, this finding has not been adequately addressed. In this paper, we hold that considering age-related inequalities offers a powerful way of interpreting recent developments in order to understand the changing stakes of cultural capital, and also their interaction with the intensification of inequalities in economic capital. After a theoretical clarification of the relationship between cultural capital and youth, we will synthesise research on young people and explore the significance of youthful cultural consumption. We will pragmatically focus on the 15–30 years old and put a particular accent on Norwegian studies in our review, as they are the most sophisticated in this genre. Four areas are explored: the restricted role of classical culture; the appeal of popular culture; digital distinctions, and moral-political positions as markers of distinction.     

COLLECTIVE MOBILIZATION AND IDENTITY FROM THE UNDERGROUND: The Deployment of "Oppositional Capital" in the Harm Reduction Movement

Within social movement literature, the concept of collective identity is used to discuss the process through which political activists create in-group cohesion and distinguish themselves from society at large. Newer approaches to collective identity focus on the negotiation of boundaries as social movement agents interact with social structural forces. However, in their adoption of a perspective that holds identity as a process, these social movement studies neglect the more tangible cultural elements that actors manipulate when they express collective identity. This research project adopts a subcultural perspective in the Birmingham tradition to address the question of how social movement actors reapporpriate symbolic expressions of identity and what meaning systems they draw from that enable them to redefine "stigmatization" as "status" This article offers the concept of "oppositional capital" as a general framework for analyzing the symbolic work that social movement actors perform in their expressions of collective identity. For the purposes of analysis, the primary elements of oppositional symbolic expressions are divided into the four categories of distinction, antagonism, political activism, and popular cultural aesthetics. This article applies the concept of oppositional capital to representations of collective identity of a radical branch of political activism within the social movement of harm reduction. Specifically, it analyzes the zine, Junkphood to describe how actors within this social movement cohort are able to present their collective identity as part of an alternative status system by drawing from an economy of signs that are generally recognized as oppositional.     

Confessions of a baseball mom: the impact of youth sports on parents' feelings and behaviors

To explore parents' emotional investment in and behaviors in response to youth sports, the author conducted a mixed-methods investigation to answer four research questions: (1)How do parents feel about their children's participation in organized youth team sports? (2) Which situations trigger which feelings? (3) How do parents' feelings influence their behaviors? (4) What parental characteristics (such as personal histories or demographics) are linked to different feelings and behaviors? The research indicated that many parents' feelings are triggered by their children's sports experiences and that adults must learn how to translate these feelings into productive behaviors.