Cultural Studies, Youth Culture and Delinquency (From Youth Subcultures: Theory, History and the Australian Experience, P 27- 32, 1993, Rob White, ed. -- See NCJ-162536)

• NCJ Number: 162541
• Author(s): K Carrington
• Date Published: 1993
• Length: 6 pages
• Sale Source: National Clearinghouse for Youth Studies
• Publication Type: Research (Theoretical)
• Language: English
• Country: Australia

Annotation

Cultural studies have had an enduring influence on contemporary studies of youth subcultures and delinquency in Australia, and the utility of the cultural studies model is assessed in terms of its ability to explain the policing of specific acts of delinquency.

Abstract

A neo-Marxist model was developed to explain the emergence of youth subcultures after World War II, based on a cultural studies approach. While there is much to commend in the cultural studies model, the model is deficient in explaining the emergence of youth subcultures and the seemingly inordinate degree of policing directed at regulating the behavior of young people who participate in subcultures. The model's most obvious limitation is its mistaken search for the origin of youth subcultures in conditions of postwar capitalism. In addition, a body of feminist cultural studies has taken issue with the content of youth subcultures, their theorization within cultural studies, and their usefulness in explaining female participation in youth subcultures and delinquency. Both neo-Marxist and feminist variations of the cultural studies model rely heavily on totalizing concepts of power, policing, and social control in order to account for the degree of social concern directed at participants in youth subcultures. The problem is that these totalizing concepts provide few of the conceptual tools needed to analyze the actual policing of those who participate in youth subcultures. 13 references and 1 photograph