Option: Youth Cultures

What Option: Youth Cultures covers

Option: Youth Cultures is examined in Component 1 Section B — one option of two, with families and households. It covers youth and the social construction of adolescence, the media and the formation of youth culture, economic change, affluence and the youth market, globalisation and youth culture, social class and youth subcultures, gender and youth culture, ethnicity and youth culture, neo-tribes and the changing nature of youth culture, delinquency, crime and youth offending, anti-school subcultures and youth in education, moral panics and media representations of youth, functionalist and Marxist perspectives on youth culture and feminist, interactionist and postmodernist perspectives on youth culture.

The 13 subtopics

Each one has its own page.

• Youth and the social construction of adolescenceTerm rite of passage, term youth culture and what sociologists mean by a period of transition.Open →
• The media and the formation of youth cultureTerm bricolage, two forms of incorporation Hebdige identified and moral panic.Open →
• Economic change, affluence and the youth marketTerm conspicuous consumption and term epistemological fallacy.Open →
• Globalisation and youth cultureGlobal youth culture, term cultural hybridity and term glocalisation.Open →
• Social class and youth subculturesCentre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, main argument of Resistance Through Rituals and counter-school culture of the lads.Open →
• Gender and youth cultureTerm bedroom culture, sexual double standard and what is meant by the crisis of masculinity.Open →
• Ethnicity and youth cultureWhat sociologists mean by new ethnicities and term code-switching.Open →
• Neo-tribes and the changing nature of youth cultureSupermarket of style, post-subcultural theory and four features Hodkinson used to identify a genuine subculture.Open →
• Delinquency, crime and youth offendingTerm short-run hedonism, term illegitimate opportunity structure and what is meant by techniques of neutralisation.Open →
• Anti-school subcultures and youth in educationHargreaves at a secondary modern, Lacey at Hightown, Ball, Woods and Willis: how streaming and teacher labelling produce the groups that invert the school's values.Open →
• Moral panics and media representations of youthTerm folk devil, stages of a moral panic and what Cohen meant by symbolisation.Open →
• Functionalist and Marxist perspectives on youth cultureParsons and Eisenstadt on youth as a bridge between family and adult roles, against the CCCS reading of subculture as symbolic resistance to class position.Open →
• Feminist, interactionist and postmodernist perspectives on youth cultureCentral feminist criticism of youth culture research, term postfeminism and interactionist approach to youth deviance.Open →

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

Take Option: Youth Cultures further

The same content, four other ways.

Questions from this topic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   What did G. Stanley Hall claim about adolescence?

   Model answer

   G. Stanley Hall (1904) described adolescence in the United States as a period of storm and stress. Hall treated the turbulence as biologically driven.

2. 2

   How did Margaret Mead challenge the storm and stress view?

   Model answer

   Margaret Mead (1928) studied adolescent girls in Samoa. Mead reported a smooth and untroubled passage to adulthood and concluded that adolescence is culturally shaped.

3. 3

   Why is Mead's Samoan research contested?

   Model answer

   Derek Freeman (1983) argued that Mead's young informants had misled her. Mead's fieldwork also dates from the 1920s, so later scholars question how far it can be relied upon.

4. 4

   What does it mean to say that youth is socially constructed?

   Model answer

   Saying youth is socially constructed means that its meaning and length vary between societies and periods. Biology supplies puberty; culture decides what being young involves.

5. 5

   Define the term rite of passage.

   Model answer

   A rite of passage is a ritual marking movement from one social status to another. Arnold van Gennep (1909) identified separation, transition and incorporation as its three stages.

6. 6

   Why do sociologists say Britain lacks a clear rite of passage into adulthood?

   Model answer

   Adult rights in Britain arrive piecemeal across several years and several different ages. No single ceremony marks the change, so the transition is drawn out.

What is inside Levo

Six ways to work the same material.

Option: Youth Cultures revision questions

What does Option: Youth Cultures cover in Eduqas A-Level Sociology?

13 subtopics: youth and the social construction of adolescence, the media and the formation of youth culture, economic change, affluence and the youth market, globalisation and youth culture, social class and youth subcultures, gender and youth culture, ethnicity and youth culture, neo-tribes and the changing nature of youth culture, delinquency, crime and youth offending, anti-school subcultures and youth in education, moral panics and media representations of youth, functionalist and marxist perspectives on youth culture and feminist, interactionist and postmodernist perspectives on youth culture. Each one has its own page with questions and model answers.

How is Option: Youth Cultures organised?

By the Eduqas A200QS specification, subtopic by subtopic, so it matches the order you are taught it in.