ABSTRACT
Reproduction theories were introduced to youth studies in the 1970s by Marxist sociologists who were challenging (explicitly or implicitly) functionalist accounts of social role allocation and socialization. Previously these processes had been regarded as achieving the best possible compromises between the capabilities of individuals and the needs of society, save for a tendency for individuals to stick close to their social class origins which, it was assumed, would be corrected by meritocratic educational reforms. Reproduction theorists have continued to insist that the tendency to ‘stick’ is not an aberration but the norm to which it is exceptions (where social mobility occurs) that require a special explanation. There are two dimensions to socio-cultural reproduction. The first concerns the ten-
dency for children to inherit their parents’ class positions. This helps to explain the second set of reproduction processes whereby social forms and relationships endure while ageing actors retire and are replaced by upcoming cohorts. Reproduction theorists insist that the maintenance of class relationships must be regarded as perpetually hazardous given that one class of people is not just relatively disadvantaged but is actually exploited and has an objective interest in the breakdown of reproduction and the ensuing revolutionary transformation.
