1. Youth Subcultures

2. Introduction A youth subculture is a youth based subculture with distinctive styles, behaviours and interests. According to theories , members often signal their membership by either making distinctive or symbolic choices, for example, clothing styles or hairstyles. However, common interests, dialects and slang, and music genres can be an important factor. Youth subcultures offer an identity outside social institutions such as family, work, home and school. Social class, ethnicity and gender can also play apart in youth subcultures. When people do studies of youth subcultures they usually look at the symbolic references attached to clothing, music, and other visible affections by the members and how these symbols are interpreted by members of the dominate culture. A general reference of youth subcultures refers to the ways people (adolescences and teenagers) differentiate themselves from the general culture of their community.

3. Features Of Subcultures Youth subcultures are often defined or distinguishable by elements such as fashions, beliefs, slang, dialects, behaviours or interests . Vehicles have played a big part in youth subcultures, in the UK during the 1960’s, mod’s were associated with scooters while rockers were associated with motorcycles. Many youth subcultures are associated with specific music genres, and in some cases music has been the primary characteristic of the group such as with, Punks, Ravers, Metalheads, Goths, Gangsters, Emo and Indie.

4. Examples of Youth Subcultures Hippies: mostly in the middle class, which originated in San Francisco in the 1960s and quickly spread around the world. They listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as marijuana and LSD to explore different states of consciousness. Rastafarian: a black youth subculture and religious movement which arose in the ghettos of Kingston, Jamaica in the 1950’s. Men grew their hair longer and wore it in dreadlocks and wore woollen caps, used marijuana and listened to reggae music. Punks: associated with punk rock music in the 1950’s. It included music, ideologies, fashion, visual art, dance, literature and film. They dressed with the intention to shock and hair was dyed in bright colours. Bikers: it originated in Britain which evolved out of the Teddy Boys in the 1960’s. They usually wore black leather jackets, jeans and boots and had greasy hair. They rode around on motorcycles and listened to Rock’n’Roll. Skinheads: first appeared in England in the late 1960’s as a working class reaction to Hippies. Hair was cuts close to the scalp, wore work shirt and cropped jeans and heavy red boots. They were heavily involved in attacks with Asians and football hooliganisms.