4. • Build on the work of Marx
– Society is built on class divisions
– Progress is the economic advancement
of one class
– There is a play of power
– Capitalism doesn’t benefit everyone
• Gramsci
– Hegemony allows for cultural
domination
– The Organic intellectual
• Bourdieu
– Social, Cultural and Symbolic Capital
– Hegemony in socialisation – symbolic
violence (blindess)
Conflict Theories
5. • Subcultural Theories
• Chicago School (Merton)
– Thrasher
– Albert Cohen
– Gangs – subcultures can be defined through
their delinquent behaviours & function
• Birmingham School (Marx)
– Phil Cohen
– Subcultures take on styles
– Are working-class and subjected
– The style is a voice of resistance and the
taking on of labels
• Countercultures
• Recent developments
Conflict Theories
6. • Influenced by the work of Foucault,
Said and Wittigenstein
• The concept of ‘adolescence’ is a
social construction
• Inequalities are way deeper than class
• Exploring our history can reveal how
the traces of inequalities remain
today
• Psychology is a deeply problematic
western science
• Authenticity and identity are key
• The place of resistance
Postmodern Understandings
1. Conformity: try to reach their goals through socially accepted means.
2. Innovation: take up criminal or deviant methods to reach their goal
3. Ritualism: simplify their goals through ritual until they can reach them in acceptable ways acceptable ways.
4. Retreatism: retreat from societies goals
5. Rebellion: they swap out societies goals and the acceptable means to achieve them with other goals and methods. Some of these might be socially unacceptable