ABSTRACT
Functionalism lies discredited. It is reborn every autumn, for new generations of sociology students, only to be ritually slaughtered. By the beginning of the 1980s, the new wave had become the leading British theory in the analysis of youth cultures. The theory contends that Teddy Boy, punk, skinhead and other working-class youth cultures are correctly read as collective attempts to resolve contradictions in the participants’ class circumstances, experienced while at school, then in the labour market. The new wave argues that there is no single national or international youth culture, but a series of class-divided sub-cultures. New wave theorists acknowledge the absence of any precise fit between young people’s class origins, educational and occupational attainments, and the youth sub-cultures in which they become involved. Working-class youth cultures are considered oppositional, like their parents, rather than subordinate. ‘Youth culture is an essay in the mini-politics of rebellion against obscure social forces’.
