3. The modern youth subculture style

#281. Explanations of youth subcultures2. Informal social control as the mechanisms to reinforce socialization 3. Male and female subculture

Youth can be difficult to define but the Concise Oxford Dictionary defines it as: ”the state of being young, the period between childhood and adult age” It is therefore seen as a period of transition between childhood and adulthood. In contemporary Britain, youth is recognized as an important stage of development in which individuals begin to leave the dependent and powerless world of the child and enter the world of the adult. 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.

28.3. Subculture Facts of Men and Women Society expects different behaviors from women and men. As a female I have experienced this up close and personal. Growing up, my parents expected me to behave differently than my brothers. I was always expected to do more around the house, while, it was okay for my brothers to slack, so to speak. My brothers were expected to do the outside work; things like mowing the lawn and cleaning the gutters were left to them while I had to do the dishes and make all the beds. In society, specifically the American society, appropriate guidelines are different for men and women.

Colors For example, (Hue Consulting) uses colors to see the difference between the two. Pink is associated with girls and blue for boys. Parents unconsciously reinforce gender roles. Another example from my text book states that the toys and games parents select for children are often unconsciously intended to socialize them into the appropriate gender roles. Girls receive dolls in an attempt to socialize them into future roles as mothers. When boys receive dolls, more than likely they are action figures that are meant to bring out aggressive tendencies. Gender inequality is very common.

#29

1. Mechanisms of social control can be formal or informal. Formal social control includes the criminal justice system, involving the police, courts and prisons. Informal social control consists of mechanisms which are not based upon formal rules but are carried family, friends and member of the society everyday. The use of negative or positive sanctions (punishments or rewards) are vital in maintaining social control. Functionalist see the criminal justice system as operating to look after the interest of society. They argue that society requires to be controlled and need punishment or it would collapse into a state or anomie.

According to Durkheim in order for society to keep its existence, members must commit to shared values, a collective conscience. Also the type of punishment provided by the formal system of control reflects what type of society it is. In less complex, mechanistic societies, punishment is based on retribution. The punishment will be public and physical in nature e.g. execution. As societies develop and become more complex (organic societies), punishment will shift away from public punishment to imprisonment. The aim of the punishment is more to force the person to make amenders for their wrongdoing. Durkheim called this ‘restitutive law’.