[go: up one dir, main page]
Scribd
Upload
1K views11 pages

Functionalist - Youth Culture

Functionalists view youth culture as serving important social functions: 1) It promotes social integration for young people by providing a sense of belonging through shared styles, attitudes, and values with other youth. 2) The transitory stage of youth culture allows young people to gain independence from adults through activities like part-time jobs while achieving their own status and identity. 3) Youth culture acts as a "rite of passage" that gently smoothes the transition from childhood to adulthood and the shift to the competitive world of work. It offers a mechanism for breaking from the home in an emotionally less stressful way.

Uploaded by

arsdemostrativa
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
1K views11 pages

Functionalist - Youth Culture

Functionalists view youth culture as serving important social functions: 1) It promotes social integration for young people by providing a sense of belonging through shared styles, attitudes, and values with other youth. 2) The transitory stage of youth culture allows young people to gain independence from adults through activities like part-time jobs while achieving their own status and identity. 3) Youth culture acts as a "rite of passage" that gently smoothes the transition from childhood to adulthood and the shift to the competitive world of work. It offers a mechanism for breaking from the home in an emotionally less stressful way.

Uploaded by

arsdemostrativa
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PPT, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
You are on page 1/ 11

Functionalism

See the good in everything

Society is like a car: You need all the different parts to make it work. e.g. the law They are structuralists (macro is like a steering wheel they say sociology). In other words, and the media is the bodywork.

education affects everything in society, not just elements of society


They view society as a CONSENSUS: we all agree on certain things, based on the norms and values we have been taught through primary socialisation

View society as made up of smaller components (functions) that all work together to make society functional

Functionalism

Functionalist attitude to youth culture


Individuals need to be integrated into society to feel a sense of belonging. This is known as social integration. Without social integration, society would begin to break down. This is known as anomie individuals lacking a sense of belonging.

Where do young people get a sense of belonging from?

Functionalist attitude to youth culture

Functionalists argue that a key role of youth culture is to promote social integration for young people by offering a transitory phase between childhood and adulthood.

Parsons (1954)

A functionalist, he argued that the transitory stage offers youth a chance to become independent from adults whilst achieving their own status. Youth gain a little bit of financial independence from having part time jobs. The skills linked with money management mean that this period of life is a RITE OF PASSAGE.

Youth, therefore,

Parsons (1954)

Parsons notes that the shift from the comfortable home life to the competitive world of work is a difficult one. He argues that youth culture smoothes this transition, making it easier to adjust to the adult world.

What do you think of Parsons ideas?


Is youth culture a pleasant period of ones life that gently smoothes the transition to adult life?

Eisenstadt (1956)

Argued that most youth need to find a way to distinguish themselves from their parents. Eisenstadt argued that childhood offers an ascribed status, whereas adulthood offers an achieved status. However, breaking from the home is emotionally stressful, so Eisenstadt agreed with Parsons that youth culture offers a mechanism for doing so. This is because other youth - with the same style, attitudes and values - are experiencing the same thing.

Functionalists therefore see youth culture as one homogeneous age group. Can this position be criticised?

Eisenstadt (1956)

Youth culture also offers a sense of togetherness and binds young people into society. Furthermore, it could be seen to offer an outlet for tensions young people may experience on the road to independence. Basically, youth culture smoothes over all the rough edges of becoming an adult. Youth culture also acts as a social glue for young people, bringing people of the same age together (social integration).

What criticisms can we make about the functionalist approach to youth culture?

It ignores the clear differences between different youth subcultures. Marxists argue that these differences are class based and should therefore not be ignored. Functionalists focus on age. They are therefore ignoring the fact that youth is a state of mind that can occur from ones early teens to their twenties. They ignore gender. They are describing other people like themselves: white, middle-class Americans.

What is the purpose of youth culture according to functionalists?

Do you think youth culture is a useful function of society?

You might also like