Functionalist view of the

formation of youth
subcultures
  Functionalists see society as being based on shared
values – individuals must feel integrated into society.
 If people are not integrated, they will be isolated and
anomie will result.

Functionalists see youth as a transitional stage from

childhood to adulthood.

Talcott Parsons sees youth as being an important stage in

capitalist society – in other cultures children becoming adults
would go through a “rite of passage” to prove their
adulthood.

However, the development of capitalism created a divide between the role of the family and the
specialised requirements of a workplace. This requires a period of training and socialisation for
young people that wasn’t required in previous economic systems where they can learn skills that
they would not have learned in the family
  The expansion of compulsory education and training filled the gap,
now education includes a period of time that would in the past
have been considered “adult”.

Youths start to become independent from

Youth is an important stage where an
their parents, by sometimes getting part time
individual must learn to leave the
jobs, and spending more and more time
security of the family and become an
away from their families, and developing
independent person in terms of
skills like money management.
occupational status and marriage.
Individuals have to break their ties with
their parents
 Eisenstadt (1956)
Youth culture can also provide a safe outlet
for the tensions that the transition from
childhood to adulthood might bring –
allowing young people a safe space to let
off steam, find their opinions and let their
frustrations out
 Saw youth culture as a way of bringing
young people into society – during the
phase between childhood and adulthood
a person may feel isolated, and this could
bring about anomie.
 Youth culture is a way of allowing the
young person to feel included in a group –
it provides a set of shared norms and
values for the person – and a sense of
belonging.

This is an important way of testing boundaries, experimenting

and reinforcing acceptable norms and values – so this ultimately
contributes to the social order
Evaluation of Functionalist View

 Functionalists were generalising about youth culture as a whole, and did

not account for individual subcultural differences between youths.
 Subcultures based on social class, gender, and ethnicity were not
considered by functionalists.
 Most of the evidence used by functionalists cam from white, middle class
American males – and so was not representative of youth subcultures
developing in different ethnic groups/social classes.