Subculture Theory: An Historical and Contemporary Assessment of the Concept for Understanding Deviance

Abstract

Subcultures attract attention in culture, society, and the media because they have been theorized as not merely distinct from, but also in opposition to, the dominant culture. In the United States and the United Kingdom the concept of subculture has been a major explanatory tool for sociology and criminology to understand deviant behavior. For nearly a hundred years the concept has been at the center of academic struggle for superiority between rival paradigmatic approaches, which have employed different theoretical explanations. In this article I critically assess the origins and politics of the way the concept of subculture has been applied primarily to youth cultures in terms of the relationship between agency and constraint.

Acknowledgments

The author thanks the editor, Craig J. Forsyth, and also Heith Copes, Keith Hayward, Howard Becker, David Downes, Paul Rock, Kate O'Brien, David Matza, James Short, Dick Hebdige, and Debbie Cox for their help with revising and commenting on the article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Shane Blackman

SHANE BLACKMAN is a Professor of Cultural Studies at Canterbury Christ Church University, UK. He received his Ph.D. at the Institute of Education, University of London as an ESRC scholarship student. His most recent book is Chilling Out: The Cultural Politics of Substance Consumption, Youth and Drug Policy (2004, McGrawHill-Open University Press). He is an editor of the Journal of Youth Studies and YOUNG: Nordic Journal of Youth Research and a member of the ESRC Peer Review College. Dr. Blackman's research interests include ethnography, deviance, schooling, youth culture, popular music, drugs, feminism, and social and cultural theory.