Course Resources Archive

This module will explore the emergence of a sociology of youth in Western countries post-1945 and the reasons for the emergence of a series of youth cults based around fashion and music.

This module will cover the following topics:

• American 1950s -theories of juvenile subcultures of delinquency – Cohen, Cloward and Ohlin;
• Contextual changes including higher disposable incomes, mass markets, the change in the school leaving age;
• British 1970s - subcul;tures vindicated and explored – Clarke, Matza, Jefferson and Hall, Willis – the cultural turn of Birmingham University’s Centre of Contemporary Cultural Studies (C.C.C.S.);
• The relationship of youth subcultures to the dominant values of elder generations;
• Recent turns to psychological and biographical explanations of youth transitions;
• An analysis of whether or not  anthropology helps understand what are universal and the culturally specific elements of youth transitions – rites of passage, adolescence and career path;
• Faith groups.

i. Knowledge and Understanding. 
By the end of the module students should be able to: 
a) Critically appraise the historical context of welfare-state formation and the growth of the ‘affluent society’.
b) Explore the variety of discourses that have evolved around the explanation of youth transitions
c) Critically examine theories of juvenile delinquency and deviant subcultures and their development into cultures of resistance
d) Explore how ethnographic research has challenged preconceived ideas about transitions and urban youth
e) Critically analyse how notions of identity have developed in to cultures of opposition to the status quo as part of the accepted conventions of young peoples’ transition into adulthood

ii. Skills
On successful completion of the module the students should be able to:
a) Synthesise a wide range of themes;
b) Apply theory to practice.

Staff/student contact: 20% (workshops and group tutorials)
Student directed learning: 80% (practice based learning experiences, learning sets, student directed learning, assignment preparation)

The Library Catalogue contains full details of the current reading list for this module. Further details may also be found in the Module Guide.