ABSTRACT
For many decades scholars have debated about the limits and possibilities of oppositional sub-cultures of youth and adolescents. Early works focused on the extent to which these sub-cultures constituted ‘real’ acts of resistance or the extent to which, conversely, they were simply symbolic acts serving to reproduce the very structures of inequality that they challenged. The conclusions of various analysts depended largely on whether they framed ‘successful’ resistance solely in term of class struggle and the manifestations of a working class consciousness, or whether they accepted acts of resistance by youth on their own terms-in their ability to ‘win space for the young: cultural space in the neighborhood and institutions, real time for leisure and recreation, actual room on the street or street-corner’ (Clarke et al., 1976:45).
