ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to explore the subjective dispositions and 'cultural' activities of young people from the point of view of the relationship between material circumstances and available modes of identity construction. The experience of social connection tends to transcend the shifting and activity-specific subcultural forms. Youth cultural activity, including subcultural activity, is a constant, dynamic process. The tendency in media treatments and youth studies research to both universalise and particularise youth experience in certain ways has important implications for the way in which the 'deviant' is defined. The involvement of youth in such subcultures is overlaid by the constant tension between a radicalised and a commercialised cultural expression. The analytical task is to separate out the different types of 'rebellion' and organisation among young people, and to distinguish the basis for different types of youth cultural and subcultural activity.
