Youth Culture and Social Control: Analytical Essay

Social control as stated by the item is a way for order to be implemented in society by setting rules and standards that harness individuals to conventional standards. Formal social control is imposed by official bodies like the police, courts, schools and other institutions. There are punishments for breaking formal written rules or laws such as fines, going to prison or being excluded from schoolcollege. Informal social control is unwritten rules in our society such as how we treat our friends and family. When someone breaks these rules, we show our disapproval in informal ways like not speaking to them or telling them off.

Functionalists view social control as a positive function for society as the order given through shared values and consensus allows norms and values to be created. Marxists and feminists agree with the basic process of social control however suggest that the main reason for social control so that members of the bourgeoisie can rule society in their own interests otherwise known as the bourgeois hegemony where the bourgeoisie create and promote ideology and therefore people who their aiming to control such as the lower working class and women buy into this ideology rather than reality. In some sense to Marxist and feminist point of view social control is brainwashing and manipulating to convince people on their conditions of existence and how they should expect to live.

Formal social control is imposed by official bodies like the police, courts, schools and other institutions. An example of formal social control would be the government's criminal justice system. Government or judicial processers create rules for all modern states which are then written down as legal code. Which everyone is bound to. These formal rules and then enforced by an agency such as the police. If found the rules have been broken some form of judicial system such as a court will then have some sort of punishment for the law breaker that’s in accordance with the legal code. In the UK the given punishments may range from prison, community service or a fine. And when arriving to prison people will find them in a similar condition with set rules that are not to be broken and if found to have been broken the individual will find themselves facing another punishment of some sort. The use of punishments sets the idea into the individual that there is no space of their behaviour in society and therefore they will need to adapt as there is nowhere else, they can simply go. For individual that do not actively go against the law, having the punishments set up for those who do allow then to see the same conditions they will be put into and therefore will hopefully lead individuals away from breaking the laws set in place. There are similar systems of rules and punishments situated throughout the state. For example, with the example given in the item we can go further from the suggestion of teachers and look at the wide focus of how education and the educational system implements informal social control with clearly stated rules and codes of conduct that if ignored and broken will result in some form of punishment such as sanctions or being expelled.

Informal social control is unwritten rules in our society such as how we treat our friends and family. When someone breaks these rules, we show our disapproval in informal ways like not speaking to them or telling them off. To ensure that these unwritten rules are not broken there may be some forms of rewards given to us when were younger. For example, if a child is well behaved and doesn’t break any unwritten rules such as not talking when other people are then they may get rewards such as certain snacks, being allowed to watch more Tv or go on their electrical device for longer. This controls the behaviour of the children as they are presented with benefits of not breaking any of these unwritten rules.

A gang is three or more people of associates, friends or family members with a defined leadership and internal organization. Gangs are motivated by violence or illegal activity such as drug trafficking, auto theft, weapon trafficking assault, swarming, shootings, stabbings, murder and violent behaviours. All gangs have agreed on upon a common behaviour that shares the same norms and values which promotes the strength between the gang members. Gangs often have distinctive characteristic that is used to identify gang members, such as graffiti tags, certain coloured clothing to distinguish different gangs from one another, slogans, hand signs, hair styles, code words, slurs and so on.

Territorial gangs control a geographical location, they are in the midpoint of criminal groups and community groups as they strive to gain control over a selected tertiary to oversee all criminal activities while also protecting the people living there. The boundaries that are set by the gangs mean that the community and gang members feel 'safety in numbers' if confrontation becomes an issue with others from differing areas and gangs. Organised or corporate gangs have a hierarchy, definite leadership and rules, that keeps the members in control of the person at the top, with the most control. Organised crime gang members have a main purpose is to carry out criminal activities

Being part of a gang can offer a sense of belonging normally associated with being part of a family or extended family. Since many young people do not have a patriarchal role model due to the absence of the fathers, being in a gang that is male dominant has that sense of having male figures you can rely on as well as belong to. Due to the family sense in gangs that is created from the shared norms and values. The sense of family is also created by the sense of protection as people can be confident that their other gang members will protect them.

In most gangs you will find that number of their members are young students who are in anti-school subcultures. We can see this in Sewell's study in 2000 when he looked at African-Caribbean subcultures that suggests that schools were openly racist to this subculture due to them being seen as threatening by the teachers. From this a number of African-Caribbean students began forming an anti-school subculture that went against schools. However due to the lack of educational focus the African-Caribbean kids who were in these anti-school subcultures are left with no skills, no qualifications along with a fatalistic attitude. Therefore, they turn to gangs to provide them with an opportunity to earn money which allows them to provide for themselves and their families.

Furthermore, other members of the gangs may only see there for excitement in 1990 Stephen Lyng termed this as “edgework” he interviewed young men and found gained an identity of being “bad” from which they found to get pleasure from being bad, the members further more stated that being a gang member provided them with 'good times'. Laughter, camaraderie and a general feel-good factor. Their risky actions are an escape from an obligation caused from rationales and restrictions. Moreover, Katz in 1988 identified a different type of edgework called “vicarious edgework”, it notes how young women are drawn to bad boy male gang members to derive the excitement of risk indirectly while remaining law abiding.

Sociologist Mac an Ghaill in 1994 studied macho lads, an anti-school subculture formed from their experience with a crisis of masculinity. He claimed that girls had gained a higher status in school by achieving more educational susses than the boys. As a result, the boys are unaware of what male identity is or should be due to women now coming out as top in education as well as traditional male jobs disappearing from the job market. It was claimed that the boys were now demoralised with a lacking sense of purpose in life. So, to deal with their new educational position and the stronger fear of failure from the possibility of not being able to get a job and earn money due to male jobs dropping and lacking educational smarts, the boys began forming anti-school subcultures that would cause them to misbehave and get in trouble, breaking the school rules. This can also be linked with the work of Cohen who sees the formation of anti-school subcultures as a way of dealing with status frustration. So, with the boys new lowered status in education and the workforce, their anti-school subcultures are a way for them to deal with it all and vent their frustration by acting out.

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A second reason why anti school subcultures were formed was because of the stigmatisation around people from the precariat and working class. People from these classes were believed to be rude, unmotivated and idiotic, especially by the teachers. Students in these lower classes realised that there was no way to break the stigmatisations around them and therefore decided to form anti-school subcultures that gave into these stigmas, act exactly how they were perceived to be. In links to Becker, by being labelled as deviant, rude, idiotic and unmotivated leads to this label becoming our master status with how we perceive ourselves. The people in the lower classes start to believe these bad behaviours is who they really are and therefor make it their master status - our main characteristics and personality. It is said that the labelling and master status leads to deviancy amplification, which we can see as the people who are being labelled come together and act in the behaviours that they are believed to own, and break the school rules or act out in deviant behaviours.

In conclusion as stated by Mac an Ghaill changes such as girls gaining higher educational status and the lack of male jobs leads to a crisis of masculinity as men are shut out from their traditional roles, and are not adequately socialised to be able to fit into these new rules and therefore act in a deviant anti-school way creating subcultures as a way of dealing with their social frustration. As well as being a result in stigmatisation and labelling that leads onto a deviant master status causing ant-school subcultures and behaviours being formed.

In terms of the economic system, traditional Marxism describes social conduct, with the bourgeoisie seeking profit. As a starting point, modern writers then use classical Marxism to then go on to describe behaviour, culture and ideas. Neo Marxists look at classes, but propose that individuals from different social classes perceive the world in different ways, how different stresses are encountered and how they react in an Individual way.

Marxists as a whole agree that youth cultures share certain characteristics despite their different styles. They see that youth subcultures are a form of resistance against capitalism exaggerating working class values. They further state that the large variety of youth subcultures is because each generation is facing different sets of problems and challenges all caused by capitalism.

Examples of youth cultures would firstly be Hall and Jefferson. In 1976 Hall and Jefferson looked at teddy boys, they claimed that their style was an expression of contempt middle class values as they were talking old Edwardian-style and wearing it in the face of the advancing social mobility of the working and middle classes, to revive a pre-war concept of class hierarchy. Secondly Cohen in 1972 and Clark in 1976 looked at skin heads. They both argued that the aggressive racism by skinheads was an attempt to preserve their traditional working-class identity. Yet many find fault in this Marxist theory, they see that Marxism romanticises the youth cultures, overlooking their racism by stating it was a result of their social class issues. Lastly Paul Corrigan’s 1979 study of aggressive hooligan working class males in Sunderland was due to them looking for excitement because they were bored in school. Therefore, violence was a way of expressing frustration with capitalism.

Mike Brake in 1984 claimed that youth cultures provided magical solutions to the lives of their member. Young people are relatively powerless in society and cannot alter their social world. He indicated that youth cultures are magical solutions to the problems of poor urban youth who can do nothing to improve their lives and futures, so turn to youth cultures to make them think they have the power to change society.

Many Marxists in the 1970’s worked with the CCCS, they viewed youth subcultures as a form of counter- culture resisting and capitalist control of society. Youth culture was seen as a politically uniformed action against society, which showed evidence of working-class rebellion by a class conscience

Other criticisms of the Marxist explanations of youth subcultures by Len Barton and other feminists in 2006 criticise the CCCS for stating that the working-class youth subcultures are a resistance to capitalism. However young people themselves would not have recognised themselves doing it out of capitalism resistance. They also mentioned how Marxists were romanticising and excusing the racism by the skinheads as racism shouldn’t be excusable just because of their class issues. Furthermore, feminists have complained that the CCCS had a mainstream bias, only looking at youth culture from a white working-class male point of view.

A postmodernist argument against Marxist explanations is that the spectacular youth cultures may have not existed in the way that Marxist suggest, and the ideological believes of Marxists analyses do not reflect the social reality.

In conclusion the Marxist explanation of youth subcultures has an in-depth analysis of how youth cultures are made to rebel against capitalism as well as creating a magical solution that they can turn to in hopes of changing society. Hoverer many other sociologists find issues with the Marxist evaluation as they only study white male working class youth cultures and not anyone else, concluding that they are all a result of resisting against the capitalist society that doesn’t serve them.