ABSTRACT
This chapter offers an overview of the main theoretical contributions of the “Birmingham School,” a term which refers specifically to the work produced by scholars associated with the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in the mid-1960s and 1970s. Through its focus on “subcultures,” the Birmingham School made ground-breaking contributions to sociology by bringing issues of ideology and hegemony to the forefront. Rejecting the positivist tradition prevailing in mainstream sociology at that time, research conducted by CCCS members and their affiliates approached subcultures as sites of working-class resistance against the dominant, hegemonic cultural order. While paying particular attention to the notion of “culture,” this line of enquiry aimed to reconcile the materialist and the symbolic branches of sociology. By analyzing both the role played by institutions of social control in defining what constitute “deviant acts” and the corresponding reactions to said “deviance,” the Birmingham School also contributed to improving our understanding of “moral panics” and the function they fulfill in times of crisis of hegemony. This chapter will argue that the very innovative research conducted by the Birmingham School offers extremely valuable insights that should inform the way scholars approach gang studies from a critical perspective.
