ABSTRACT
The sociological accounts of youth subcultures which proliferated in the late 1970s and early 1980s were concerned with the sociostructural conditions and class contradictions that created problems for male, white, working-class youth. Subcultural style was interpreted as a collective response to these shared problems because it represented a form of symbolic resistance to dominant (middle-class) cultural values whilst defending or reclaiming traditional workingclass values. The challenge was symbolic because it did not constitute an actual or successful solution to subordination. From this perspective, joining a subculture can be regarded as a solution to sociostructural problems (see Brake, 1985; Hall andJefferson, 1976; Hebdige, 1979).
