Subculture is a culture-within-a-culture. Subculture is the distinct norms, values and behavior of particular groups located within society. Society is heterogeneous and culture is not spread out evenly. It is from here that idea of subculture and subsociety emerge. Subcultures are linked to the deviant behavior literature and some sociologists have focused on subsociety to avoid the culture issue altogether. Subculture has often been treated as synonymous with the population comprising the subsociety. Subculture refers to group that shares common values, norms, beliefs and prison subculture refers to inmate code. The concept of subculture implies some degree of group self-sufficiency such that individuals may interact, find employment, recreation, friends and mates within the group.
How do subcultures emerge?
How does society react to different subcultural movements?
How has global media and virtual networking influenced subcultures?
Subcultures: The Basics
by Ross Haenfler, is an introduction to youth cultures in a global context, and
examines a range of subcultural movements including hip hop in Japan, global
graffiti writing crews, heavy metal in Europe and straight edge movements in the
USA.
What is a
subculture?
The term Counterculture is close in meaning to subculture, but counterculture stresses the idea of an open and active opposition to dominant cultural values. Subculture has been examined without sufficient concern for delineating the groups of individuals serving as its referent. The subcultural system is pictured as homogeneous, static and closed.
Cohen’s theory follows the well-known adage “my child went wrong by hanging out with the wrong crowd”. This wrong crowd is the center of Cohen’s theory; phenomena called the delinquent subculture. Cohen felt the delinquent subculture formed in order to provide a solution to the problem of social status, or the lack of status, for lower class youth imbibing lower class culture - respect in the eyes of ones fellows becomes very important. Two factors of the delinquent subculture are:
(1) negativistic spite, malice, and contempt with active rule breaking.
(2) “short-run hedonism”, pleasure seeking with little interest in long-run goals.
THE INMATE SUBCULTURE IN
DUTCH PRISONS
M. GRAPENDAAL, Research and Documentation Centre Ministry of Justice The
Netherlands. The British Journal of Criminology 30:341-357 (1990) This article
is a shortened version of the first Dutch research into the inmate subculture in
Dutch prisons. The contents of this subculture are described, as is the
initiation process by which new prisoners become members of the prison
community.
Marijuana Argot As Subculture Threads - Social Constructions by Users in New
York City.
Bruce D. Johnson, Flutura Bardhi, Stephen J. Sifaneck
and Eloise Dunlap.
An ethnographic study of blunt
and marijuana users in New York City identified 180 argot words that are commonly used to
maintain the subculture secrecy. Argot terms are created and spread by subculture
participants. Argot also delineates important distinctions within and helps organize how
the marijuana subculture structures use practices, networks and markets. Argot maintains
boundaries with other drug subcultures. The dynamic use of argot constitutes a
communication system widely understood among marijuana subculture participants, yet is
largely hidden from mainstream culture.
Sex Work and Drug Use in a Subculture of Violence
Hilary L. Surratt, James A. Inciardi, Steven P. Kurtz, Marion C. Kiley.
Abstract: This article examines the subculture of violence thesis as it relates to female
street sex workers in Miami. Interview and focus group methods were used to study the
intersections of childhood trauma, drug use, and violent victimization among 325 women.
Consistent relationships between historical and current victimization
survey suggest that female sex workers experience a continuing cycle of violence
throughout their lives.
Slang Usage in the Addict Subculture
Paul F. Cromwell, JR., Sam Houston State University, Department of Sociology, San Antonio
College Juvenile Probation Officer, Houston, Texas. The drug addict lives in a unique world, differing even in its language, a new jargon.
Possibly nothing more clearly illustrates the fact that drug addiction has cultural
components than the special communication among its members. Until the
advent of large numbers of juveniles into the outer fringes of the addict subculture,
little was known of this unique language except by police and persons specializing in the
rehabil itation of the addict.
A Subculture of Parasuicide?
Stephen D. Platt.
The purpose of this study was to devise an empirical test of the hypothesis that
geographical areas with high parasuicide rates (HRAs) are characterized by a distinctive
subculture which is expected to facilitate parasuicidal behavior to a considerable degree.
A secondary hypothesis states that cultural differences between parasuicides and the general population will be relatively more pronounced in
areas with low parasuicide rates (LRAs) than in HRAs. The HRA subculture is also
significantly less understanding of parasuicide, and considers it to be more immoral and
sanctionable than the dominant LRA culture.
Sports Within the Black Subculture: A Matter of Social Class or a Distinctive
Subculture?
Elmer Spreitzer, Eldon E. Snyder.
This research compares the relative prominence of sports within the black and white
subcultures. The focus is on variability among individuals in sports involvement as
operationally defined by a seven- item index of passive sports participation. Based on
multiple regression analysis of variance, and
analysis of covariance, the greater extent of sports involvement among blacks remained
evident after controlling for age, education, income, and size of city. We interpret these
findings as reflective of a distinctive subculture as contrasted with a culture of poverty phenomenon as discussed by
Rudman (1986) in his study of the sports mystique within the black subculture.
Fighting Back: A Test Of The Subculture Of Violence Thesis
Ineke Haen Marshall, Vincent J. Webb, University of Nebraska-Omaha
National Crime Survey (NCS) data on criminal incidents over a ten-year period (1973-1982)
were used to examine the correlates of type of self-protective action taken by crime
victims. The primary focus of the study is the usefulness of the subculture of violence
thesis for the interpretation of victim responses to personal crime.
The Inmate Subculture in Jails
JAMES GAROFALO, RICHARD D. CLARK, State University of New York at Albany
There is a long line of prison research addressing the nature and correlates of the inmate subculture, the adherence of inmates to a
set of norms that reflect opposition to institutional rules and staff. The findings suggest that positive
orientations toward inmate subcultural norms in jail settings are mostly attributable to
experienced inmates who are already familiar with the norms when they enter the jail and
who readapt to the norms after determining that they will not be gaining their freedom
immediately.
Male transsexuals in the homosexual subculture - EM Levine.
The author describes 20 male transsexuals who differ from most discussed in professional
studies and from those in media portrayals in that they live in the male homosexual
subculture. Furthermore, interviews with these individuals indicated that transsexuals are
no more sexually or socially homogeneous than heterosexuals or homosexuals. In general,
these men entered the homosexual subculture in their teens; they knew they were not
heterosexual and therefore assumed they must be homosexual.
Opportunity, Subculture and the Economic Performance of Urban Ethnic Groups
Martin T. Katzman, This essay is the outgrowth of a study of ethnic groups undertaken with
Martin Levin.
Abstract. A large proportion of the variance in
occupational structure, income, unemployment, and labor force status is accounted for by
variations in urban opportunities, relative group size and the members' educational
attainment. These residual ethnic influences as well as ethnic differences in marital,
educational, and labor force status suggest that differences in ethnic subculture have
important economic consequences.
Gary Alan Fine & Sherryl Kleinman: Rethinking Subculture: An Interactionist
Analysis
Abstract: Subculture, despite the term's wide usage in sociology, has not proved to be a
very satisfactory explanatory concept. It is argued that for the subculture construct to be of maximal usefulness it
needs to be linked to processes of interaction. Subculture is re-conceptualized in terms
of cultural spread occurring through an interlocking group network characterized by
multiple group membership, weak ties, structural roles conducive to information spread
between groups, and media diffusion. Identification with the referent group serves to
motivate the potential member to adopt the artifacts, behaviors, norms, and values
characteristic of the subculture. Youth subcultures are presented as illustrations of
these processes operate.