‘We just hang out together’: Youth Cultures and Social Class

Abstract

This paper argues that young people's subcultural styles and identities are closely bound up with social class. We show that youth subcultures have been explained in a number of ways since emerging as a subject of serious study in the second half of the twentieth century, and that these explanations are located within a broader social scientific discourse. Fieldwork data collected through interviews with young people in Edinburgh and Newcastle indicate that, rather than being a free-floating lifestyle choice, young people's membership of subcultural groupings is largely determined by social class. In particular, the study shows that young people labelled as ‘Chavs’ or ‘Charvas’ should be understood as a subcultural group with specific social class affiliations. The paper concludes by considering some implications of these findings for theory, for further field research and for practical action.

Acknowledgments

The authors are grateful to the young people in Edinburgh and Newcastle for their willingness to talk about their lives. They also wish to thank the Moray House School of Education at the University of Edinburgh for financial support for the work described here. Finally, the authors are particularly grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose detailed comments on an earlier draft have been so helpful.