Academic literature on the topic 'Australian middle class youth subcultures'

This article examines the birth of youth cultures in Chile in the mid-1950s. Using biographical accounts and archival material together with theoretical, and historical analysis, it is proposed that these groups were shaped by the segmented cultural industry (especially the film industry), as much as by the labelling and press-induced moral panic. Consequently, it is believed that the ‘coléricos’ and the ‘carlotos’ are more than just youth subcultures or countercultures associated to a particular generation of middle-class men marked by the unequal impact of the modernizing transformations Chile experienced in the 1950s. Instead, it is stated that youth cultures arose as a hyperbole of social change as they synthesize the mutations that affected intergenerational relations and the concept of youth itself, shifting from the status of being single to just being young, based on practices that the adult society does not carry out, such as informal dating (pololeo), collaborative home parties (malones) and segregated film attendance (matinés).

This article looks at the activities of a fan club dedicated to Shah Rukh Khan for the purpose of discerning how young men and women negotiate their identities vis-à-vis a mainstream culture that perpetuates negative stereotypes about fans. The members of the club are upper middle class from New Delhi. The study of fan culture in India is primarily organized around the assumptions that its membership comes from the urban poor youth (men) and that it is a phenomenon restricted to South India. In other words, there is a sense that fan cultures like youth subcultures develop in direct opposition to the mainstream. My contention is that youth culture in neoliberal India exhibits a more complex form of negotiation with the mainstream marked by notions of ‘timepass’ (leisure time as ‘wasteful’), compromise and ‘diglossia’ (language meant to negotiate opposed cultural perceptions and expectations to gain an entry into symbolic capital). This becomes necessary because mainstream culture maintains a consistent approach of being opposed to fan culture.

Since its revival in the 1980s, Lindy hop along with other swing dances has become increasingly popular with middle class youth throughout the developed world. Social dancing plays a central part in local swing dance communities, and DJing recorded music has become an essential part of social dancing. Marked by class and gender, DJing in swing dance communities is also shaped by digital technology, from the CDs, computers and portable media devices which DJs use to play digital musical files to the discussion boards and websites where they research and discuss DJing and the online music stores where they buy CDs and download music. This brief discussion of the preponderance of digital technology in swing dance DJing is part of a larger project considering the mediation of embodied practice in swing dance culture, and it pays particular attention to the ways in which mediated discourse in swing culture reflects wider social forces, yet is also subordinated by the embodied discourse of the dance floor.

Objective: This pilot study sought to better understand what can be achieved by an evidence-based classroom social and emotional education programme. Design and Methods: A 10-lesson, classroom-based programme that taught about emotional literacy, personal strengths, coping and problem-solving strategies, stress management, emotional regulation and support seeking was provided to 56 students in Years 7 (13 years) and 8 (14 years) in an Australian middle school. Teachers were trained to deliver the programme, with participatory modelling of each activity. Before and after delivery of the programme, students were surveyed for their social and emotional wellbeing using the Kessler 10 (K10) instrument for non-specific psychological distress; the ‘Internal Assets’, ‘School Resources’ and ‘Cooperation and Communication’ questions from the Resilience and Youth Development Module (RYDM) of the California Healthy Kids Survey (CHKS); and questions developed for this study on class connectedness and social and emotional skills. Subsequent to programme completion, focus groups were conducted with teachers and participating students to gauge programme fidelity, utility and engagement. Results: There was an improvement in psychological distress that approached significance ( t = 2, df = 42, p = .053), although the symptomatic score remained in the range indicative of medium-level distress. Cooperation and communication improved significantly ( t = −2.34, df = 42, p = .024) as did class connectedness ( t = −2.46, df = 43, p = .018). There was no change in individual resilience factors, school protective factors, or social and emotional skills. The focus groups were generally positive about the programme, but indicated fidelity was compromised, mainly because the lesson periods were too short. Conclusion: While this small-scale pilot study has a number of limitations, it does indicate the need to improve the psychological wellbeing of middle school students. The findings also provide evidence that brief social and emotional education programmes can have some positive effects.

The expansion of commercial air travel in Australia after the Second World War caused significant changes to women's fashion and its marketing in this country. The developing technology of aeroplanes as commercial carriers meant European clothes and ideas reached Australia increasingly rapidly. A long-term sense of stylistic inferiority diminished and the sometimes unquestioning acceptance of imported style was challenged. As post-war retailers expanded their product range, they sought possibilities to market Australian designed and made garments both in Europe and the US. Using co-marketing with the airline industry in particular, retailers began to foster a new confidence amongst middle-class women that by wearing local attire they could participate in a worldwide network of stylish production and consumption. For a brief period, Australian, US and European-made fashions were in serious competition. This article suggests promotional images featuring the connectivity between the technology of air transport and fashion after the Second World War mark a discrete moment in the representation of women in this country as mature and stylishly dressed global travellers, prior to a vigorously emerging youth market by the mid-1960s. It also posits the idea that, although representational stereotypes of Australian women as homemakers remained intact, the use of technological settings of airline travel in fashion photography created a new and cosmopolitan narrative that ran counter to the ideal of domesticity.

STEAM-based learning is a global issue in early-childhood education practice. STEAM content becomes an integrative thematic approach as the main pillar of learning in kindergarten. This study aims to develop a conceptual and practical approach in the implementation of children's education by applying a modification from STEAM Learning to R-SLAMET. The research used a qualitative case study method with data collection through focus group discussions (FGD), involving early-childhood educator's research participants (n = 35), interviews, observation, document analysis such as videos, photos and portfolios. The study found several ideal categories through the use of narrative data analysis techniques. The findings show that educators gain an understanding of the change in learning orientation from competency indicators to play-based learning. Developing thematic play activities into continuum playing scenarios. STEAM learning content modification (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) to R-SLAMETS content (Religion, Science, Literacy, Art, Math, Engineering, Technology and Social study) in daily class activity. Children activities with R-SLAMETS content can be developed based on an integrative learning flow that empowers loose part media with local materials learning resources. Keyword: STEAM to R-SLAMETS, Early Childhood Education, Integrative Thematic Learning References Ali, E., Kaitlyn M, C., Hussain, A., & Akhtar, Z. (2018). the Effects of Play-Based Learning on Early Childhood Education and Development. Journal of Evolution of Medical and Dental Sciences, 7(43), 4682–4685. https://doi.org/10.14260/jemds/2018/1044 Ata Aktürk, A., & Demircan, O. (2017). A Review of Studies on STEM and STEAM Education in Early Childhood. Journal of Kırşehir Education Faculty, 18(2), 757–776. Azizah, W. A., Sarwi, S., & Ellianawati, E. (2020). Implementation of Project -Based Learning Model (PjBL) Using STREAM-Based Approach in Elementary Schools. Journal of Primary Education, 9(3), 238–247. https://doi.org/10.15294/jpe.v9i3.39950 Badmus, O. (2018). Evolution of STEM, STEAM and STREAM Education in Africa: The Implication of the Knowledge Gap. In Contemporary Issues in Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics Teacher Education in Nigeria. Björklund, C., & Ahlskog-Björkman, E. (2017). Approaches to teaching in thematic work: early childhood teachers’ integration of mathematics and art. International Journal of Early Years Education, 25(2), 98–111. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2017.1287061 Broadhead, P. (2003). Early Years Play and Learning. In Early Years Play and Learning. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203465257 Canning, N. (2010). The influence of the outdoor environment: Den-making in three different contexts. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 18(4), 555–566. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2010.525961 Clapp, E. P., Solis, S. L., Ho, C. K. N., & Sachdeva, A. R. (2019). Complicating STEAM: A Critical Look at the Arts in the STEAM Agenda. Encyclopedia of Educational Innovation, 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-13-2262-4_54-1 Colucci, L., Burnard, P., Cooke, C., Davies, R., Gray, D., & Trowsdale, J. (2017). Reviewing the potential and challenges of developing STEAM education through creative pedagogies for 21st learning: how can school curricula be broadened towards a more responsive, dynamic, and inclusive form of education? BERA Research Commission, August, 1–105. https://doi.org/10.13140/RG.2.2.22452.76161 Conradty, C., & Bogner, F. X. (2018). From STEM to STEAM: How to Monitor Creativity. Creativity Research Journal, 30(3), 233–240. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2018.1488195 Conradty, C., & Bogner, F. X. (2019). From STEM to STEAM: Cracking the Code? How Creativity & Motivation Interacts with Inquiry-based Learning. Creativity Research Journal, 31(3), 284–295. https://doi.org/10.1080/10400419.2019.1641678 Cook, K. L., & Bush, S. B. (2018). Design thinking in integrated STEAM learning: Surveying the landscape and exploring exemplars in elementary grades. School Science and Mathematics, 118(3–4), 93–103. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.12268 Costantino, T. (2018). STEAM by another name: Transdisciplinary practice in art and design education. Arts Education Policy Review, 119(2), 100–106. https://doi.org/10.1080/10632913.2017.1292973 Danniels, E., & Pyle, A. (2018). Defining Play-based Learning. In Encyclopedia on Early Childhood Development (Play-Based, Issue February, pp. 1–5). OISE University of Toronto. DeJarnette, N. K. (2018). Implementing STEAM in the Early Childhood Classroom. European Journal of STEM Education, 3(3), 1–9. https://doi.org/10.20897/ejsteme/3878 Dell’Erba, M. (2019). Policy Considerations for STEAM Education. Policy Brief, 1–10. Doyle, K. (2019). The languages and literacies of the STEAM content areas. Literacy Learning: The Middle Years, 27(1), 38–50. http://proxy.libraries.smu.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eue&AN=133954204&site=ehost-live&scope=site Edwards, S. (2017). Play-based learning and intentional teaching: Forever different? Australasian Journal of Early Childhood, 42(2), 4–11. https://doi.org/10.23965/ajec.42.2.01 Faas, S., Wu, S.-C., & Geiger, S. (2017). The Importance of Play in Early Childhood Education: A Critical Perspective on Current Policies and Practices in Germany and Hong Kong. Global Education Review, 4(2), 75–91. Fesseha, E., & Pyle, A. (2016). Conceptualising play-based learning from kindergarten teachers’ perspectives. International Journal of Early Years Education, 24(3), 361–377. https://doi.org/10.1080/09669760.2016.1174105 Finch, C. R., Frantz, N. R., Mooney, M., & Aneke, N. O. (1997). Designing the Thematic Curriculum: An All Aspects Approach MDS-956. 97. Gess, A. H. (2019). STEAM Education. STEAM Education, November, 2011–2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04003-1 Gronlund, G. (n.d.). “ Addressing Standards through Play-Based Learning in Preschool and Kindergarten .” Gronlund, G. (2015). Planning for Play-Based Curriculum Based on Individualized Goals to Help Each Child Thrive in Preschool and Kindergarten Gaye Gronlund. Gull, C., Bogunovich, J., Goldstein, S. L., & Rosengarten, T. (2019). Definitions of Loose Parts in Early Childhood Outdoor Classrooms: A Scoping Review. The International Journal of Early Childhood Education, 6(3), 37–52. Hapidin, Pujianti, Y., Hartati, S., Nurani, Y., & Dhieni, N. (2020). The continuous professional development for early childhood teachers through lesson study in implementing play based curriculum (case study in Jakarta, Indonesia). International Journal of Innovation, Creativity and Change, 12(10), 17–25. Hennessey, P. (2016). Full – Day Kindergarten Play-Based Learning : Promoting a Common Understanding. Education and Early Childhood Development, April, 1–76. gov.nl.ca/edu Henriksen, D. (2017). Creating STEAM with Design Thinking: Beyond STEM and Arts Integration. Steam, 3(1), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.5642/steam.20170301.11 Inglese, P., Barbera, G., La Mantia, T., On, P., Presentation, T., Reid, R., Vasa, S. F., Maag, J. W., Wright, G., Irsyadi, F. Y. Al, Nugroho, Y. S., Cutter-Mackenzie, A., Edwards, S., Moore, D., Boyd, W., Miller, E., Almon, J., Cramer, S. C., Wilkes-Gillan, S., … Halperin, J. M. (2014). Young Children’s Play and Environmental Education in Early Childhood Education. PLoS ONE, 2(3), 9–25. https://doi.org/10.1586/ern.12.106 Jacman, H. (2012). Early Education Curriculum. Pedagogical Development Unit, FEBRUARY 2011, 163. https://www.eursc.eu/Syllabuses/2011-01-D-15-en-4.pdf Jay, J. A., & Knaus, M. (2018). Embedding play-based learning into junior primary (Year 1 and 2) Curriculum in WA. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 43(1), 112–126. https://doi.org/10.14221/ajte.2018v43n1.7 Kennedy, A., & Barblett, L. (2010). Supporting the Early Years Learning Framework. Research in Practise Series, 17(3), 1–12. Keung, C. P. C., & Cheung, A. C. K. (2019). Towards Holistic Supporting of Play-Based Learning Implementation in Kindergartens: A Mixed Method Study. Early Childhood Education Journal, 47(5), 627–640. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-019-00956-2 Keung, C. P. C., & Fung, C. K. H. (2020). Exploring kindergarten teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge in the development of play-based learning. Journal of Education for Teaching, 46(2), 244–247. https://doi.org/10.1080/02607476.2020.1724656 Krogh, S., & Morehouse, P. (2014). The Early Childhood Curriculum : Inquiry Learning Through Integration. Liao, C. (2016). From Interdisciplinary to Transdisciplinary: An Arts-Integrated Approach to STEAM Education. Art Education, 69(6), 44–49. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2016.1224873 Lillard, A. S., Lerner, M. D., Hopkins, E. J., Dore, R. A., Smith, E. D., & Palmquist, C. M. (2013). The impact of pretend play on children’s development: A review of the evidence. Psychological Bulletin, 139(1), 1–34. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0029321 Maxwell, L. E., Mitchell, M. R., & Evans, G. W. (2008). Effects of Play Equipment and Loose Parts on Preschool Children’s Outdoor Play Behavior: An Observational Study and Design Intervention. Children, Youth and Environments, 18(2), 37–63. McLaughlin, T., & Cherrington, S. (2018). Creating a rich curriculum through intentional teaching. Early Childhood Folio, 22(1), 33. https://doi.org/10.18296/ecf.0050 Mengmeng, Z., Xiantong, Y., & Xinghua, W. (2019). Construction of STEAM Curriculum Model and Case Design in Kindergarten. American Journal of Educational Research, 7(7), 485–490. https://doi.org/10.12691/education-7-7-8 Milara, I. S., Pitkänen, K., Laru, J., Iwata, M., Orduña, M. C., & Riekki, J. (2020). STEAM in Oulu: Scaffolding the development of a Community of Practice for local educators around STEAM and digital fabrication. International Journal of Child-Computer Interaction, 26, 100197. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijcci.2020.100197 Moomaw, S. (2012). STEM Begins in the Early Years. School Science and Mathematics, 112(2), 57–58. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1949-8594.2011.00119.x Peng, Q. (2017). Study on Three Positions Framing Kindergarten Play-Based Curriculum in China: Through Analyses of the Attitudes of Teachers to Early Linguistic Education. Studies in English Language Teaching, 5(3), 543. https://doi.org/10.22158/selt.v5n3p543 Pyle, A., & Bigelow, A. (2015). Play in Kindergarten: An Interview and Observational Study in Three Canadian Classrooms. Early Childhood Education Journal, 43(5), 385–393. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-014-0666-1 Pyle, A., & Danniels, E. (2017). A Continuum of Play-Based Learning: The Role of the Teacher in Play-Based Pedagogy and the Fear of Hijacking Play. Early Education and Development, 28(3), 274–289. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2016.1220771 Quigley, C. F., Herro, D., & Jamil, F. M. (2017). Developing a Conceptual Model of STEAM Teaching Practices. School Science and Mathematics, 117(1–2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1111/ssm.12201 Ridgers, N. D., Knowles, Z. R., & Sayers, J. (2012). Encouraging play in the natural environment: A child-focused case study of Forest School. Children’s Geographies, 10(1), 49–65. https://doi.org/10.1080/14733285.2011.638176 Ridwan, A., Rahmawati, Y., & Hadinugrahaningsih, T. (2017). Steam Integration in Chemistry Learning for Developing 21st Century Skills. MIER Journail of Educational Studies, Trends & Practices, 7(2), 184–194. Rolling, J. H. (2016). Reinventing the STEAM Engine for Art + Design Education. Art Education, 69(4), 4–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2016.1176848 Sancar-Tokmak, H. (2015). The effect of curriculum-generated play instruction on the mathematics teaching efficacies of early childhood education pre-service teachers. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 23(1), 5–20. https://doi.org/10.1080/1350293X.2013.788315 Sawangmek, S. (2019). Trends and Issues on STEM and STEAM Education in Early Childhood. Képzés És Gyakorlat, 17(2019/3-4), 97–106. https://doi.org/10.17165/tp.2019.3-4.8 Science, A. I. (n.d.). STEM Project-Based Learning. Spencer, R., Joshi, N., Branje, K., Lee McIsaac, J., Cawley, J., Rehman, L., FL Kirk, S., & Stone, M. (2019). Educator perceptions on the benefits and challenges of loose parts play in the outdoor environments of childcare centres. AIMS Public Health, 6(4), 461–476. https://doi.org/10.3934/publichealth.2019.4.461 Taylor, J., Bond, E., & Woods, M. (2018). A Multidisciplinary and Holistic Introduction. Varun A. (2014). Thematic Approach for Effective Communication in Early Childhood Education Thematic Approach for effective communication in ECCE. International Journal of Education and Psychological Research (IJEPR), 3(3), 49–51. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/289868193 Wang, X., Xu, W., & Guo, L. (2018). The status quo and ways of STEAM education promoting China’s future social sustainable development. Sustainability (Switzerland), 10(12). https://doi.org/10.3390/su10124417 Whitebread, D. D. (2012). The Importance of Play. Toy Industries of Europe, April, 1–55. https://doi.org/10.5455/msm.2015.27.438-441 Wong, S. M., Wang, Z., & Cheng, D. (2011). A play-based curriculum: Hong Kong children’s perception of play and non-play. International Journal of Learning, 17(10), 165–180. https://doi.org/10.18848/1447-9494/cgp/v17i10/47298 Zosh, J. M., Hopkins, E. J., Jensen, H., Liu, C., Neale, D., Hirsh-Pasek, K., Whitebread, Solis, S. L., & David. (2017). Learning through play : a review of the evidence (Issue November). The LEGO Foundation.

Introduction As street protests and clashes between citizens and authorities in places as different as Ferguson, Missouri and Hong Kong in autumn 2014 demonstrate, everyday life in many parts of the world is characterised by conflicting and competing sets of cultural norms, values, and practices. The idea that groups create cultures that stand in contrast to “mainstream” or “dominant culture” is nothing new—sociology’s earliest scholars sought cultural explanations for social “dysfunctions” such as anomie and deviance. Yet our interest in this article is not about the problems that marginalised and non-normative groups face, but rather with the cultures that are created as part of dealing with those problems. Milton Yinger begins his 1982 book, Countercultures: The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down, by contrasting multiple perspectives on countercultures. Some thinkers have characterised countercultures as not only a mundane feature of social life, but as a necessary one: Countercultures and the many types of intentional communities they commonly create are not social aberrations. For thousands of years there have been attempts to provide alternatives for the existing social order in response to the perennial grounds for dissent: hierarchy and privilege […,] disgust with hedonism and consumerism […, and] a decline in the quality of life. (Yinger, Countercultures 1) Others, however, have discursively delegitimised countercultures by characterising them as something in between naiveté and unschooled arrogance. Speaking specifically about hippies in the 1960s, Bell argued that the so-called counter-culture was a children’s crusade that sought to eliminate the line between fantasy and reality and act out in life its impulses under a banner of liberation. It claimed to mock bourgeois prudishness, when it was only flaunting the closet behavior of its liberal parents. It claimed to be new and daring when it was only repeating in more raucous form […] the youthful japes of a Greenwich Village bohemia of a half century before. It was less a counter-culture than a counterfeit culture. (xxvi-xxvii) If Bell is at all right, then perhaps countercultures may be better understood as subcultures, a term that may not require the idea of opposition (but see Gelder; Williams, Subcultural). To tease this distinction out, we want to consider the value of the counterculture concept for the study of oppositional subcultures. Rather than uncritically assuming what counter means, we take a more analytical view of how “counter,” as similar to other terms such as “resistant” and “oppositional,” has been articulated by social scientists. In doing this, we focus our attention on scholarly works that have dealt explicitly with group cultures “that sharply contradict the dominant norms and values of the society of which that group is a part” (Yinger, Countercultures 3). The Relationship between Counterculture and Subculture Many scholars point to the Chicago School of sociology as developing the first clear articulation of subcultural groups that differed clearly from mainstream society (see for example, Gelder and Thornton; Hannerz, E.; Williams, Youth). Paul G. Cressey, Frederic Thrasher, and later William Foote Whyte each provide exemplary empirical studies of marginal groups that were susceptible to social problems and therefore more likely to develop cultures that were defined as problematic for the mainstream. Robert Merton argued that marginalised groups formed as individuals tried to cope with the strain they experienced by their inability to access the cultural means (such as good education and good jobs) needed to achieve mainstream cultural goals (primarily, material success and social status), but Albert Cohen and others subsequently argued that such groups often reject mainstream culture in favour of a new, alternative culture instead. Within a few years, conceptual distinctions among these alternative cultures were necessary, with counterculture and subculture being disambiguated in American sociology. Yinger originally employed the term contraculture but eventually switched to the more common counterculture. Subculture became most often tied either to the study of religious and ethnic enclaves (Mauss) or to deviance and delinquency (Arnold), while counterculture found its currency in framing the cultures of more explicitly political groups and movements (see for example, Cushman; George and Starr). Perhaps the clearest analytical distinction between the terms suggested that subculture refer to ascribed differences based upon socio-economic status, ethnicity, religion (and so on) in relation to the mainstream, whereas counterculture should refer to groups rooted in an explicit rejection of a dominant culture. This is similar to the distinction that Ken Gelder makes between subcultures based upon marginalisation versus non-normativity. Counterculture became best used wherever the normative system of a group contains, as a primary element, a theme of conflict with the values of the total society, where personality variables are directly involved in the development and maintenance of the group's values, and wherever its norms can be understood only by reference to the relationships of the group to a surrounding dominant culture. (Yinger, Contraculture 629) Even at that time, however, such a neat distinction was problematic. Sociologist Howard S. Becker demonstrated that jazz musicians, for example, experienced a problem shared in many service occupations, namely that their clients did not possess the ability to judge properly the value of the service rendered, yet nevertheless sought to control it. As a consequence, a subculture emerged based on the opposition of “hip” musicians to their “square” employers’ cultural sensibilities. Yet Becker framed their experiences as subcultural rather than countercultural, as deviant rather than political (Becker 79-100). Meanwhile, the political connotations of “counterculture” were solidifying during the 1960s as the term became commonly used to describe aspects of the civil rights movement in the US, hippie culture, and the anti-Vietnam or peace movement. By the end of the 1960s, subculture and counterculture had become analytically distinct terms within sociology. Cultural Studies and the Class-ification of Counterculture The reification of subculture and counterculture as ontologically distinct phenomena was more or less completed in the 1970s through a series of publications on British youth cultures and subcultures (see Hall and Jefferson; Hebdige; Mungham and Pearson). The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) in particular expended a great deal of collective mental energy theorising the material base upon which cultures—and in particular spectacular youth subcultures such as mods and punk—exist. As with Marxist analyses of culture more generally, class was considered a key analytic variable. In the definitive theoretical statement on subculture, Clarke, Hall, Jefferson, and Roberts argued that “the most fundamental groups are the social classes, and the major cultural configurations will be […] ‘class cultures’” (13). Subcultures were thus seen as ideological reactions to the material conditions experienced and made meaningful within working class “parent culture.” This is what made youth subcultures sub—a part of the working-class—as well as cultural—the process of expressing their structural position. Given the Marxist orientation, it should go without saying that subcultures, as working-class youth cultures, were seen as naturally in a state of conflict with bourgeois culture. But that approach didn’t account well for counter-currents that emerged from within the middle-class, whose relationship with the means of production was markedly different, and so the concept of counterculture was appropriated to describe a distinctly middle-class phenomenon. The idea that counterculture represented an overtly political response from within the dominant culture itself fitted with work by Theodore Roszak and Frank Musgrove, and later Yinger (Countercultures) and Ulf Hannerz, who each defined counterculture through its political and activist orientations stemming from a crisis within the middle-class. To further differentiate the concepts, the CCCS dismissed the collective aspect of middle-class resistance (see Clarke et al., 58-9, for a list of phenomena they considered exemplary of middle-class counterculture), describing it as more “diffuse, less group-oriented, [and] more individualised” than its working-class counterpart, the latter “clearly articulated [as] ‘near’ or ‘quasi’-gangs” (Clarke et al. 60). And whereas subcultures were centred on leisure-time activities within working-class environments, countercultures were concerned with a blurring of the boundaries between work and leisure. This conceptualisation was problematic at best, not least because it limits counterculture to the middle-class and subculture to the working class. It also gave considerably more agency and consequence to middle-class youths. It seemed that countercultures, with their individualist tendencies, offered individuals and groups choices about what and how to resist, as well as some expectations for social change, while subculturalists, locked within an unfortunate class position, could only resist dominant culture “at the profoundly superficial level of appearances” (Hebdige 17). Beyond the Limits of Class Cultures By 1980 cultural studies scholars had begun disassembling the class-basis of subcultures (see for example, G. Clarke; McRobbie; Griffin). Even though many studies still focused on stylised forms of opposition, subcultural scholarship increasingly emphasised subcultures such as punk as reflecting a more explicitly politicised resistance against the dominant or mainstream culture. Some scholars suggested that “mainstream culture” was used as a contrastive device to exaggerate the distinctiveness of those who self-identity as different (see U. Hannerz; Copes and Williams), while others questioned what subcultures could be seen as existing independently from, or in assumed opposition to (see Blackman; Thornton). In such cases, we can see a move toward reconciling the alleged limits of subculture as a countercultural concept. Instead of seeing subcultures as magical solutions and thus inevitably impotent, more recent research has considered the agency of social actors to overcome social divisions such as race, gender, and class. On the dance floor in particular, youth culture was theorised as breaking free of its class-binding shackles. Along with this break came the rhetorical distancing from CCCS’s definitions of subculture. The attempted development of “post-subculture” studies around the Millennium focused on consumptive behaviours among certain groups of youths and concluded that consumption rather than opposition had become a hallmark of youth culture broadly (see Bennett, Popular; Huq; Muggleton). For these scholars, the rave and club cultures of the 1990s, and others since, represent youth culture as hedonistic and relatively apolitical. “Post-subculture” studies drew in part on Steve Redhead’s postmodern approach to youth culture as found in The Clubcultures Reader and its companion text, From Subcultures to Clubcultures (Redhead). These texts offered a theoretical alternative to the CCCS’s view of oppositional subcultures and recognition that subcultural style could no longer be understood as a representation of ideological strain among working-class youths. Carried forward in volumes by David Muggleton and Rupert Weinzierl,,among others, “post-subcultural” scholarship criticised prior subcultural research for having objectified/reified mainstream/subcultural boundaries and authenticities, echoing Gary Clarke’s remark that the sharp distinction between us and them “rests upon [subculturalists’] consideration of the rest of society as being straight, incorporated in a consensus, and willing to scream undividedly loud in any moral panic” (71). Instead, the mixtures of punk, mod, skinhead and/or hippy styles among club-goers signalled “entirely new ways of understanding how young people perceive the relationship between music taste and visual style…revealing the infinitely malleable and interchangeable nature of the latter as these are appropriated and realised by individuals as aspects of consumer choice” (Bennett, Subcultures 613). Reincorporating the Counter into Subculture Studies The postmodern focus on cultural fluidity, individuality, and consumption highlights to some extent the agency that individuals have to make choices about the cultures in which they participate. To be sure, the postmodern and post-subculture critiques of class-based subculture studies were quite influential in the development of more recent subcultural scholarship, though not necessarily as they were intended. Much of the theoretical rhetoric of post-subculture scholarship (over-)emphasised heterogeneity, contingency, and play, which drew attention away from the collective identities and practices that continue to characterise many subcultures and groups. Fortunately, other scholars over the last decade have been critical of that approach’s failure to deal with perennial concerns related to participation in alternative cultural groups, including consumption (Buckingham), voice (Bae and Ivashkevich), education (Tuck and Yang), and group affiliation (Pilkington), among others. We want to follow this trajectory by explicitly reiterating the continuing significance of the “counter” aspects of subcultures. Two trends in social theory are exemplary in this reiteration. The first trend is a growing interest in re-theorizing resistance to refer to “a contribution to progressive transformations and radical changes in social and cultural structures” (Johansson and Lalander) rather than to a set of styles and practices through which working-class youth impotently rage against the machine. Resistance is qualitatively different from rebellion, which is often framed in terms of unconscious or irrational behaviour (Raby); resistance is first and foremost intentional. Subcultures articulate resistance to mainstream/dominant culture and may be measured across several continua, including passive to active, micro to macro, covert to overt, individual to collective, and local to global (see Williams, Resistance; E. Hannerz). Participants in countercultures see themselves as being more critically aware of what is happening in the world than the average person, believe that they act on that critical awareness in their thoughts, words, and/or deeds, and electively detach themselves from “involuntary or unconscious commitments” (Leary 253) to mainstream culture, refusing to uncritically follow the rules. The concept of resistance thus gives some momentum to attempts to clarify the extent to which members of alternative cultures intentionally break with the mainstream. The links between resistance and counterculture are explicitly dealt with in recent scholarship on music subcultures. Graham St John’s work on electronic dance music culture (EDMC), for example, offers a complex analysis of resistant practices that he conceptualizes as countercultural. Participation in EDMC is seen as more than simple hedonism. Rather, EDMC provides the scripts necessary for individuals to pursue freedom from various forms of perceived oppression in everyday life. At a more macro level, Madigan Fichter’s study of counterculture in Romania similarly frames resistance and political dissent as key variables in the articulation of a counterculture. Some recent attempts at invoking counterculture seem less convincing. Noting that counterculture is a relatively “unpopular term in social scientific research,” Hjelm, Kahn-Harris, and LeVine nevertheless proceed to theorize heavy metal as countercultural by drawing on the culture’s “transgressive” (14) qualities and “antagonistic […] attempts to shock and provoke [as well as] those occasions when metal, by its very presence, is shocking” (15). Other studies have similarly articulated “countercultures” in terms of behaviours that transgress mainstream sensibilities (see for example, Arthur and Sherman; Kolind). It is debatable at best, however, whether hedonism, transgression, or provocation are sufficient qualities for counterculture without concomitant cultural imperatives for both resistance and social change. This leads into a brief comment on a second trend, which is the growing interconnectedness of social theories that attend to subcultures on the one hand and “new” social movements (NSMs) on the other. “Traditional” social movements, such as the civil rights and labour movements, have been typically organised by and for people excluded in some way from full rights to participate in society, for example the rights to political participation or basic economic protection. NSMs, however, often involve people who already enjoy full rights as members of society, but who reject political and economic processes that injure them or others, such as marginalised groups, animals, or the environment. Some movements are contentious in nature, such as the Occupy-movement, and thus quite clearly antagonistic toward mainstream political-economy. NSM theories (see Pichardo), however, also theorize the roles of culture and collective identity in supporting both opposition to dominant processes and strategies for alternative practices. Other NSMs foster lifestyles that, through the minutiae of everyday practice, promote a ground-up reaction to dominant political-economic practices (see Haenfler, Johnson, and Jones). Both contentious and lifestyle movements are relatively diffuse and as such align with traditional conceptualisations of both subculture and counterculture. NSM theory and subcultural theories are thus coming together in a moment where scholars are seeking distinctly cultural understandings of collective lifestyles of resistance and social change. Conclusion Recent attempts to rephrase subcultural theory have combined ideas of the Birmingham and Chicago Schools with more contemporary approaches such as social constructivism and new social movements theory. Together, they recognise a couple of things. First, culture is not the determining structure it was once theorised to be. The shift in understanding subcultural groups as rooted in ascribed characteristics—being naturally different due to class, ethnicity, age, or to location (Park; Cohen; Clarke et al.)—to one in which subcultures are intentional articulations created by people, highlights the agency of individuals and groups to create culture. The break with realist/objectivist notions of culture offers promising opportunities for understanding resistance and opposition more generally. Second, the “counter” continues to be relevant in the study of subcultures. Subcultural participation these days is characterised as much or more by non-normativity than by marginalisation. As such, subcultures represent intentional protests against something outside themselves. Of course, we do not mean to suggest this is always and everywhere the case. Subcultural homogeneity was never really real, and concepts like “the mainstream” and “dominant culture” on the one hand, and “counterculture” and “opposition” on the other, are dialectically constructed. The “sub” in subculture refers both to a subset of meanings within a larger parent or mainstream culture (meanings which are unproblematic within the subculture) and to a set of meanings that explicitly rejects that which they oppose (E. Hannerz). In this regard, “sub” and “counter” can come together in new analyses of opposition, whether in terms of symbols (as cultural) or actions (as social). References Arnold, David O., ed. The Sociology of Subcultures. Berkeley, CA: Glendessary P, 1970. Arthur, Damien, and Claire Sherman. “Status within a Consumption-Oriented Counterculture: An Ethnographic Investigation of the Australian Hip Hop Culture.” Advances in Consumer Research 37 (2010): 386-392. Bae, Michelle S., and Olga Ivanshkevich. “If We Can’t Talk about This, We’ll Talk about Something Else: Shifting Issues to Keep the Counter-Discourse Alive.” Girls, Cultural Productions, and Resistance. Eds. Michelle S. Bae and Olga Ivanshkevich New York: Peter Lang, 2012. 65-80. Becker, Howard S. Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance. New York: Free Press, 1963. Bennett, Andy. “Subcultures or Neo-Tribes? Rethinking the Relationship between Youth, Style, and Musical Taste.” Sociology 33.3 (1999): 599-617. ---. Popular Music and Youth Culture: Music, Identity, and Place. New York: Palgrave, 2000. Blackman, Shane J. Youth: Positions and Oppositions—Style, Sexuality, and Schooling. Aldershot, UK: Avebury, 1995. Buckingham, David. “Selling Youth: The Paradoxical Empowerment of the Young Consumer.” Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media. Eds. David Buckingham, Sara Bragg, and Mary Jane Kehily. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 202-221. Clarke, Gary. “Defending Ski-Jumpers: A Critique of Theories of Youth Subcultures.” On Record: Rock, Pop, and the Written Word. Eds. Simon Frith and Andrew Goodwin. London: Routledge, 1990. 68-80. Clarke, John, Stuart Hall, Tony Jefferson, and Brian Roberts. “Subcultures, Cultures, and Class.” Resistance through Rituals. Eds. Stuart Hall and Tony Jefferson. London: Routledge, 1976. 9-74. Cohen, Albert. Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang. New York: Free Press, 1955. Copes, Heith, and J. Patrick Williams. “Techniques of Affirmation: Deviant Behavior, Moral Commitment, and Subcultural Identity.” Deviant Behavior 28.2 (2007): 247-272. Cressey, Paul G. The Taxi-Dance Hall. New York: Greenwood P, 1932. Cushman, Thomas. Notes From Underground: Rock Music Counterculture in Russia. New York: Albany State U of New York P, 1995. Fichter, Madigan. “Rock ’n’ Roll Nation: Counterculture and Dissent in Romania, 1965–1975.” Nationalities Papers 29.4 (2011): 567-585. Gelder, Ken. Subcultures: Cultural Histories and Social Practice. London: Routledge, 2007. Gelder, Ken and Sarah Thornton, eds. The Subcultures Reader. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 2005. George, Paul S., and Jerold M. Starr. “Beat Politics: New Left and Hippie Beginnings in the Postwar Counterculture." Cultural Politics: Radical Movements in Modern History. Eds. Jerold M. Starr and Lee A. McClung. New York: Praeger 1985. 189-234. Griffin, Christine. “‘What Time Is Now?’: Researching Youth and Culture beyond the ‘Birmingham School’.” Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media. Eds. David Buckingham, Sara Bragg, and Mary Jane Kehily. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012. 21-36. Haenfler, Ross, Brett Johnson, and Ellis Jones. “Lifestyle Movements: Exploring the Intersection of Lifestyle and Social Movements.” Social Movement Studies: Journal of Social, Cultural and Political Protest 11.1 (2012):1-20. Hall, Stuart, and Tony Jefferson, eds. Resistance through Rituals. London: Routledge, 1976. Hannerz, Erik. Performing Punk: Subcultural Authentications and the Positioning of the Mainstream. Ph.D. Thesis, Uppsala: Uppsala U, 2013. Hannerz, Ulf. Cultural Complexity: Studies in the Social Organization of Meaning. New York: Columbia UP, 1992. Hebdige. Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979. Huq, Rupa. Beyond Subculture. Pop, Youth and Identity in a Postcolonial World. London: Routledge, 2006. Johansson, Thomas, and Philip Lalander. "Doing Resistance: Youth and Changing Theories of Resistance." Journal of Youth Studies 15.8 (2012): 1078-1088. Kolind, Torsten. “Young People, Drinking and Social Class. Mainstream and Counterculture in the Everyday Practice of Danish Adolescents.” Journal of Youth Studies 14.3 (2011): 295-314. Leary, Timothy. Flashbacks. New York: Penguin, 1983. Mauss, Armand L. “Sociological Perspectives on the Mormon Subculture.” Annual Review of Sociology 10 (1984): 437-460. McRobbie, Angela. “Settling Accounts with Subcultures: A Feminist Critique.” Screen Education 34 (1980): 37-49. Merton, Robert. “Social Structure and Anomie.” American Sociological Review 3.5 (1938): 672-682. Muggleton, David. Inside Subculture: The Postmodern Meaning of Style. Oxford: Berg, 2000. Muggleton, David, and Rupert Weinzierl, eds. The Post-Subcultures Reader Oxford: Berg, 2003. Mungham, Geoff, and Geoff Pearson, eds. Working Class Youth Culture. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1976. Musgrove, Frank. Ecstasy and Holiness. Counter Culture and the Open Society. London: Methuen, 1974. Park, Robert E. 1915. “The City: Suggestions for the Investigation of Human Behavior in the City Environment.” American Journal of Sociology, 20.5 (1915): 577-612. Pichardo, Nelson A. “New Social Movements: A Critical Review.” Annual Review of Sociology 23 (1997): 411-430. Pilkington, Hilary. 2014. “‘My Whole Life Is Here:’ Tracing Journeys through Skinhead.” Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media. Eds. David Buckingham, Sara Bragg, and Mary Jane Kehily. Basingstoke, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 71-87. Raby, Rebecca. “What Is Resistance?” Journal of Youth Studies 8.2 (2005): 151-171. Redhead, Steve, ed. The Clubcultures Reader: Readings in Popular Cultural Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. ---. Subcultures to Clubcultures: An Introduction to Popular Cultural Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 1997. Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter Culture. Reflections on the Technocratic Society and its Youthful Opposition. New York: Anchor Books, 1969. St John, Graham. Technomad: Global Raving Countercultures. Oakville: Equinox, 2009. Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity, 1995 Thrasher, Frederic. The Gang: A Study of 1,313 Gangs in Chicago. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1927. Tuck, Eve, and K. Wayne Yang, eds. Youth Resistance Research and Theories of Change. New York: Routledge, 2014. Whyte, William Foote. Street Corner Society: The Social Structure of an Italian Slum. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1943. Williams, J. Patrick. 2007. “Youth Subcultural Studies: Sociological Traditions and Core Concepts.” Sociology Compass 1.2 (2007): 572-593. ---. “The Multidimensionality of Resistance in Youth-Subcultural Studies.” Resistance Studies Magazine 2.1 (2009): 20-33. ---. Subcultural Theory: Traditions and Concepts. Cambridge, UK: Polity P, 2011 Yinger, J. Milton. “Contraculture and Subculture.” American Sociological Review 25.5 (1960): 625-635. ---. Countercultures: The Promise and Peril of a World Turned Upside Down. New York: Free Press, 1982.

Introduction“Chav” is a social phenomenon that gained significant popular media coverage and attention in the United Kingdom in the early 2000s. Chavs are often characterised, by others, as young people from a background of low socioeconomic status, usually clothed in branded sportswear. All definitions of Chav position them as culturally anomalous, as Other.This article maps out a multidisciplinary definition of the Chav, synthesised from 21 published academic publications: three recurrent themes in scholarly discussion emerge. First, this research presents whiteness as an assumed and essential facet of Chav identity. When marginalising Chavs because of their “incorrect whiteness”, these works assign them a problematic and complex relationship with ethnicity and race. Second, Chav discourse has previously been discussed as a form of intense class-based abhorrence. Chavs, it would seem, are perceived as anomalous by their own class and those who deem themselves of a higher socioeconomic status. Finally, Chavs’ consumption choices are explored as amplifying such negative constructions of class and white ethnic identities, which are deemed as forming an undesirable aesthetic. This piece is not intended to debate whether or not Chav is a subculture, clubculture or neotribe. Although Greg Martin’s discussion around the similarities between historical subcultures and Chavs remains pertinent and convincing, this article discusses how young people labelled as Chavs are excluded on a variety of fronts. It draws a cross-disciplinary mapping of the Chav, providing the beginnings of a definition of a derogatory label, applied to young people marking them anomalous in British society.What Is a Chav?The word Chav became officially included in the English language in the UK in 2003, when it was inducted into the Oxford English Dictionary (OED). The current OED entry offers many points for further discussion, all centred upon a discriminatory positioning of Chav:chav, n. Etymology: Probably either < Romani čhavo unmarried Romani male, male Romani child (see chavvy n.), or shortened < either chavvy n. or its etymon Angloromani chavvy. Brit. slang (derogatory). In the United Kingdom (originally the south of England): a young person of a type characterized by brash and loutish behaviour and the wearing of designer-style clothes (esp. sportswear); usually with connotations of a low social status.Chav was adopted by British national media as a catch-all term encompassing regional variants. Many discussions have likened Chav to groups such as “Bogans” in Australia and “Trailer Trash” in the US. Websites such as UrbanDictionary and Chavscum have often, informally, defined Chav through a series of derogatory “backcronyms” such as Council Housed And Violent or Council House Associated Vermin, positioning it as a derogatory social label synonymous with notions of perceived criminality, poverty, poor taste, danger, fear, class, and whiteness.Chav came to real prominence in the early 2000s in mainstream British media, gaining visibility through television shows such as Shameless (2004-2013), Little Britain (2003-2006), and The Catherine Tate Show (2004-2009). The term exploded across the tabloid press, as noted by Antoinette Renouf in 2005. Extensive tabloid press coverage drove the phenomenon to front-page coverage in TIME magazine in 2008. Chavs were observed as often wearing Burberry check-patterned clothing. For the first time since its founding in 1856, and due to the extent of Chav’s negative media coverage, Burberry decided to largely remove its trademark check pattern between 2001 and 2014 from sale. Chavs in AcademiaThe rubric of the Chav did not emerge in academia with the same vigour as it did in popular media, failing to gain the visibility of previous youth social formations such as Punks, Mods, et al. Rather, there has been a modest but consistent number of academic publications discussing this subject: 1-3 publications per year, published between 2006-2015. Of the 22 academic texts explicitly addressing and discussing Chavs, none were published prior to 2006. Extensive searches on databases such as EBSCO, JSTOR and ProQuest, yielded no further academic publications on this subject since Joanne Heeney’s 2015 discussion of Chav and its relationship to contested conceptualisations of disability.From a review of the available literature, the following key thematic groupings run through the publications: Chavs’ embodiment of a "wrong" type of white identity; their embodiment of a "wrong" type of working-class identity; and finally, their depiction as flawed consumers. I will now discuss these groupings, and their implications for future research, in order to chart a multidisciplinary conceptualisation of the Chav. Ultimately, my discussion will evidence how "out of place" Chavs appear to be in terms of race and ethnicity, class, and consumption choices. Chavs as “Wrong” WhitesThe dividing practices (Foucault) evident in UK popular media and websites such as Urbandictionary in the early 2000s distinctly separated “hypervisible ‘filthy whites’” (Tyler) from the “respectable whiteness” of the British middle-class. As Imogen Tyler puts it, “the cumulative effect of this disgust is the blocking of the disenfranchised white poor from view; they are rendered invisible and incomprehensible”, a perspective revisited in relation to the "celebrity chav" by Tyler and Joe Bennett. In a wider discussion of ethnicity, segregation and discrimination, Colin Webster discusses Chav and “white trash”, within the context of discourses that criminalise certain forms of whiteness. The conspicuous absence of whiteness in debates regarding fair representation of ethnicity and exclusion is highlighted here, as is the difficulty that social sciences often encounter in conceptualising whiteness in terms exceeding privilege, superiority, power, and normality. Bennett discusses Chavspeak, as a language conceived as enacting combinations of well-known sociolinguistic stereotypes. Chavspeak derives from an amalgamation of Black English vernaculars, potentially identifying its speakers as "race traitors". Bennett's exploration of Chavs as turncoats towards their own whiteness places them in an anomalous position of exclusion, as “Other” white working-class people. A Google image search for Chav conducted on 8th July 2020 yielded, in 198 of the first 200 images, the pictures of white youth. In popular culture, Chavs are invariably white, as seen in shows such as Little Britain, The Catherine Tate Show and, arguably, also in Paul Abbott’s Shameless. There is no question, however, that whiteness is an assumed and essential facet of Chav identity. Explorations of class and consumption may help to clarify this muddy conceptualisation of ethnicity and Chavs. Chavs as “Wrong” Working ClassChav discourse has been discussed as addressing intense class-based abhorrence (Hayward and Yar; Tyler). Indeed, while focussing more upon the nexus between chavs, class, and masculinity, Anoop Nayak’s ethnographic approach identifies a clear distinction between “Charver kids” (a slang term for Chav found in the North-East of England) and “Real Geordies” (Geordie is a regional term identifying inhabitants from that same area, most specifically from Newcastle-upon-Tyne). Nayak identified Chavs as rough, violent and impoverished, against the respectable, skilled and upwardly mobile working-class embodied by the “Real Geordies” (825). Similar distinctions between different types of working classes appear in the work of Sumi Hollingworth and Katya Williams. In a study of white, middle-class students from English urban state comprehensive schools in Riverside and Norton, the authors found that “Chav comes to represent everything about whiteness that the middle-classes are not” (479). Here, Chav is discussed as a label that school-age children reserve for “others”, namely working-class peers who stand out because of their clothing, their behaviour, and their educational aspirations. Alterity is a concept reinforced by Bennett’s discussion of Chavspeak, as he remarks that “Chavs are other people, and Chavspeak is how other people talk” (8). The same position is echoed in Sarah Spencer, Judy Clegg, and Joy Stackhouse’s study of the interplay between language, social class, and education in younger generations. Chavspotting is the focus of Bennett’s exploration of lived class experiences. Here, the evocation of the Chav is seen as a way to reinforce and reproduce dominant rhetoric against the poor. Bennett discusses the ways in which websites such as Chavscum.com used towns, cities and shopping centres as ideal locations to practice Chav-spotting. What is evident, however, is that behind Chavspotting lies the need for recontextualisation of normalising social practices which involve identification of determinate social groups in social spaces. This finding is supported by the interviews conducted by Ken McCullock et al (548) who found the Chav label, along with its regional variant of Charva, to be an extension of these social practices of identification, as it was applied to people of lower socioeconomic status as a marker of difference: “Chav/Charva … it’s what more posh people use to try and describe thugs and that” (McCulloch et al., 552).The semi-structured interview data gathered by Spencer, Clegg, and Stackhouse reveals how the label of Chav trickled down from stereotypes in popular culture to the real-life experiences of school-aged children. Here, Chavs are likened by school children to animals, “the boys are like monkeys, and the girls are like squeaky squirrels who like to slap people if they even look at you” (136) and their language is defined as lacking complexity. It bears relevance that, in these interviews, children in middle-class areas are once again “othering” the Chav, applying the label to children from working-class areas. Heeney’s discussion of the Chav pivots around questions of class and race. This is particularly evident as she addresses the media contention surrounding glamour model Katie Price, and her receipt of disability welfare benefits for her son. Ethnicity and class are key in academic discussion of the Chav, and in this context they prove to be interwoven and inexorably slippery. Just as previous academic discussions surrounding ethnicity challenge assumptions around whiteness, privilege and discrimination, an equally labyrinthine picture is drawn on the relationship between class and the Chavs, and on the practices of exclusion and symbolic to which they are subject. Chavs as “Wrong” ConsumersKeith Hayward and Majid Yar’s much-cited work points to a rethinking of the underclass concept (Murray) through debates of social marginality and consumption practices. Unlike previous socio-cultural formations (subcultures), Chavs should not be viewed as the result of society choosing to “reject or invert mainstream aspirations or desires” but simply as “flawed” consumers (Hayward and Yar, 18). The authors remarked that the negative social construction and vilification of Chav can be attributed to “a set of narrow and seemingly irrational and un-aesthetic consumer choices” (18). Chavs are discussed as lacking in taste and/or educational/intelligence (cultural capital), and not in economic capital (Bourdieu): it is the former and not the latter that makes them the object of ridicule and scorn. Chav consumption choices are often regarded, and reported, as the wrong use of economic capital. Matthew Adams and Jayne Rainsborough also discuss the ways in which cultural sites of representation--newspapers, websites, television--achieve a level of uniformity in their portrayal of Chavs as out of place and continually framed as “wrong consumers", just as Nayak did. In their argument, they also note how Chavs have been intertextually represented as sites of bodily indiscretion in relation to behaviours, lifestyles and consumption choices. It is these flawed consumption choices that Paul Johnson discusses in relation to the complex ways in which the Chav stereotype, and their consumption choices, are both eroticised and subjected to a form of symbolic violence. Within this context, “Council chic” has been marketed and packaged towards gay men through themed club events, merchandise, sex lines and escort services. The signifiers of flawed consumption (branded sportswear, jewellery, etc), upon which much of the Chav-based subjugation is centred thus become a hook to promote and sell sexual services. As such, this process subjects Chavs to a form of symbolic violence, as their worth is fetishised, commodified, and further diminished in gay culture. The importance of consumption choices and, more specifically, of choices which are considered to be "wrong" adds one final piece to this map of the Chav (Mason and Wigley). What was already noted as discrimination towards Chavs centred upon notions of class, socioeconomic status, and, ethnicity, is amplified by emphasis on consumption choices deemed to be aesthetically undesirable. This all comes together through the “Othering” of a pattern of consumerist choices that encompasses branded clothes, sportswear and other garments typically labelled as "chavvy". Chav: Not Always a LabelIn spite of its rare occurrence in academic discourse on Chavs, it is worth noting here that not all scholarly discussions focus on the notion of Chav as assigned identity, as the work of Kehily, Nayak and Young clearly demonstrates.Kehily and Nayak’s performative approach to Chav adopts an urban ethnography approach to remark that, although these socio-economic-racial labels are felt as pejorative, they can be negotiated within immediate contexts to become less discriminatory and gain positive connotations of respectability in given situations. Indeed, such labels can be enacted as a transitional identity to be used and adopted intermittently. Chav remains an applied label, but a flexible label which can be negotiated and adapted. Robert Young challenges many established conceptualisations of Chav culture, paying particular attention to notions of class and self-identification. His study found that approximately 15% of his 3,000 fifteen-year old respondents, all based in the Glasgow area, self-identified as Chav or "Ned" (a Scottish variant of Chav). The cultural criminological approach taken by Young does not clearly specify what options were given to participants when selecting "Neds or popular" as self-identification. Young’s work is of real value in the discussion of Chav, since it constitutes the only example of self-identification as Chav (Ned); future work reasserting these findings is required for the debate to be continued in this direction. Conclusion: Marginalised on All Fronts?Have Chavs been ostracised for being the wrong type of white person? Much has been discussed around the problematic role of ethnicity in Chav culture. Indeed, many scholars have discussed how Chav adopted the language, dress and style of ethnic minority groups. This assimilation of non-white identities leaves the Chav stranded on two fronts: (1) they are marked as Other by predominantly white social groups and vilified as race/ethnicity traitors (Bennett, Chavspeak); (2) they stand apart from ethnic minority identities through a series of exaggerated and denigrated consumption choices – adopting a bricolage identity that defines them against other groups surrounding them. Are Chavs the wrong type of white, working-class consumer? We know from the seminal works of Dick Hebdige and Stuart Hall that subcultural styles can often convey a range of semiotic messages to the outside world. If one were to bear in mind the potentially isolated nature of those considered Chavs, one could see in their dress a consumption of "status" (McCulloch et al., 554). The adoption of a style predominantly consisting of expensive-looking branded clothes, highly-visible jewellery associated with an exaggerated sporting lifestyle, stands as a symbol of disposable income and physical prowess, a way of ‘fronting up’ to labels of poverty, criminality and lack of social and cultural capital.As my charting process comes to a conclusion, with the exclusion of the studies conducted by Young, Kehily and Nayak, Chav is solely discussed as an “Othering” label, vastly different from the self-determined identities of other youth subcultures. As a matter of fact, a number of studies portray the angry reactions to such labelling (Hollingworth and Williams; Bennett; Mason and Wigley). So are Chavs vilified because of their whiteness, their class, or their consumption choices? More likely, they are vilified because of a combination of all of the above. Therefore, we would not be mistaken in identifying Chavs as completely lacking in identity capital. What is apparent from the literature discussed is that the Chav exists in an anomalous “no man's land”. ReferencesAdams, Matthew, and Jayne Raisborough. "The Self-Control Ethos and the Chav: Unpacking Cultural Representations of the White Working Class." Culture & Psychology 17.1 (2011): 81-97.Bennett, Joe. "‘And What Comes Out May Be a Kind of Screeching’: The Stylisation of Chavspeak in Contemporary Britain." Journal of Sociolinguistics 16.1 (2012): 5-27.———. "Chav-Spotting in Britain: The Representation of Social Class as Private Choice." Social Semiotics 23.1 (2013): 146-162.Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Boston: Harvard UP, 1984.Foucault, Michel. “The Subject and Power." Michel Foucault: Beyond Structuralism and Hermeneutics. Eds. Hubert L. Dreyfus and Paul Rabinow. Brighton: Harvester, 1982. 777-795.Hayward, Keith, and Majid Yar. "The Chavphenomenon: Consumption, Media and the Construction of a New Underclass." Crime, Media, Culture 2.1 (2006): 9-28.Hebdige, Dick. Subculture: The Meaning of Style. London: Methuen, 1979. Heeney, Joanne. "Disability Welfare Reform and the Chav Threat: A Reflection on Social Class and ‘Contested Disabilities’." Disability & Society 30.4 (2015): 650-653.Hollingworth, Sumi, and Katya Williams. "Constructions of the Working-Class ‘Other’ among Urban, White, Middle-Class Youth: ‘Chavs’, Subculture and the Valuing of Education." Journal of Youth Studies 12.5 (2009): 467-482.Johnson, Paul. "’Rude Boys': The Homosexual Eroticization of Class." Sociology 42.1 (2008): 65-82.Kehily, Mary Jane, and Anoop Nayak. "Charver Kids and Pram-Face Girls: Working-Class Youth, Representation and Embodied Performance." Youth Cultures in the Age of Global Media. Eds. Sara Bragg and Mary Jane Kehily. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. 150-165.Maffesoli, Michel. The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society. London: SAGE, 1995.Martin, Greg. "Subculture, Style, Chavs and Consumer Capitalism: Towards a Critical Cultural Criminology of Youth." Crime, Media, Culture 5.2 (2009): 123-145.Mason, Roger B., and Gemma Wigley. “The Chav Subculture: Branded Clothing as an Extension of the Self.” Journal of Economics and Behavioural Studies 5.3: 173-184.McCulloch, Ken, Alexis Stewart, and Nick Lovegreen. "‘We Just Hang Out Together’: Youth Cultures and Social Class." Journal of Youth Studies 9.5 (2006): 539-556.Murray, Charles. The Emerging British Underclass. London: IEA Health and Welfare Unit, 1990.Nayak, Anoop. "Displaced Masculinities: Chavs, Youth and Class in the Post-Industrial City." Sociology 40.5 (2006): 813-831.Oxford English Dictionary. "Chav." 20 Apr. 2015.Renouf, Antoinette. “Tracing Lexical Productivity and Creativity in the British Media: The Chavs and the Chav-Nots.” Lexical Creativity, Texts and Contexts. Ed. Judith Munat. Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing, 2007. 61-93. Spencer, Sarah, Judy Clegg, and Joy Stackhouse. "Language, Social Class and Education: Listening to Adolescents’ Perceptions." Language and Education 27.2 (2013): 129-143.Thornton, Sarah. Club Cultures: Music, Media and Subcultural Capital. Cambridge: Polity, 1995.Tyler, Imogen. “Chav Scum: The Filthy Politics of Social Class in Contemporary Britain”. M/C Journal 9.5 (2006). 7 July 2020 <http://www.journal.media-culture.org.au/0610/09-tyler.php>.Tyler, Imogen, and Bruce Bennett. "‘Celebrity Chav’: Fame, Femininity and Social Class." European Journal of Cultural Studies 13.3 (2010): 375-393.Webster, Colin. "Marginalized White Ethnicity, Race and Crime." Theoretical Criminology 12.3 (2008): 293-312.Young, Robert. "Can Neds (or Chavs) Be Non-Delinquent, Educated or Even Middle Class? Contrasting Empirical Findings with Cultural Stereotypes." Sociology 46.6 (2012): 1140-1160.

This article focuses on girlhood in one of the youth subcultures of rural Sweden, EPA greasers. The EPA, a car that Swedes aged 15 and older can legally drive, is at the centre of EPA culture. In this uniquely and previously male Swedish youth greaser culture, there has been a recent increase in the number of Swedish girls driving EPAs. Previous research has shown how EPA culture and EPA girlhood are shaped through distancing from hegemonic urban and middle-class norms and ideology. In this article, we seek to develop an understanding of EPA culture, specifically the ways in which it has been adopted by girls. Starting out from their online performances, we will explore how place, femininity and resistance intersect. The findings demonstrate how EPA girls use a playful way of troubling norms in their online performances, understood here as space and outlet to resist and mess around with dominant discourses and prejudice. This can also be understood as a way of talking back to masculinity, the majority society and urbanity.

Bell A. J., Rosen L. A., Dynlacht D., (1994). Truancy intervention. The Journal of Research and Development in Education, 27, 203-211. Lawson M. A., Lawson H. A., (2013). New conceptual frameworks for student engagement research, policy, and practice. Review of Educational Research, 83, 432–479. Rodriguez L. F., Conchas G. Q., (2009). Preventing truancy and dropout among urban middle school youth: Understanding community-based action from the student’s perspective. Education and Urban Society, 41(2), 216-247. Coordinator, J. L. R., (2014). Factors associated with truancy. Journal of Counseling & Development, 34(7), 431-436. Shute, J. W., & Cooper, B. S. (2015). Understanding in-school truancy. Phi Delta Kappan, 96(6), 65-68. Shute, J., & Cooper, B. S. (2014). Fixing truancy now: Inviting students back to class. Rowman & Littlefield. Janosz, M., Archambault, I., Morizot, J., & Pagani, L. S. (2008). School engagement trajectories and their differential predictive relations to dropout. Journal of social Issues, 64(1), 21-40. Chesney-Lind, Meda & Nakano, Joanne. (2004). Arrest Trends, Gang Involvement, and Truancy in Hawaii: An Interim Report to the Twenty-Second Hawaii State Legislature. Honolulu, HI: University of Hawaii at Manoa. Conolly M., O’Keeffe D. (2009). Don’t fence me in: Essays on the rational truant (pp. 115–138). Buckingham, England: University of Buckingham Press. Finn, J. D. (1989). Withdrawing from school. Review of Educational Research, 59, 117–142. doi:10.2307/1170412 Wang, M. T., & Peck, S. (2013). Adolescent educational success and mental health vary across school engagement profiles. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. doi:10.1037/a0030028 Wang M.-T., Fredricks J. A., (2013). The reciprocal links between school engagement, youth problem behaviors, and school dropout during adolescence. Child Development, 85, 1–16. doi:10.1111/cdev.12138 Wang, M. T., Dishion, T. J., Stormshak, E. A., & Willett, J. B. (2011). Trajectories of family management practices and early adolescence behavioral outcomes in middle school. Developmental Psychology, 47, 1324–1341. doi:10.1037/a0024026 Hemphill S. A., Toumbourou, J. W., Smith R., Kendall G. E., Rowland B., Freiberg K., Williams J. W., (2010). Are rates of school suspension higher in socially disadvantaged neighborhoods? An Australian study. Health Promotion Journal of Australia, 21, 12–18. doi:10.1071/HE10012 Battin-Pearson S., Newcomb M. D., Abbott R. D., Hill K. G., Catalano R. F., Hawkins J. D., (2000). Predictors of early high school dropout: A test of five theories. Journal of Educational Psychology, 92, 568. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.92.3.568 Southwell N., (2006). Truants on truancy: A badness or a valuable indicator of unmet special educational needs? British Journal of Special Education, 33, 91-97. Deci E. L., (2009). Large-scale school reform as viewed from the self-determination theory perspective. Theory and Research in Education, 7, 244–252. doi:10.1177/1477878509104329 Thapa A., Cohen J., Guffey S., Higgins-D’Alessandro A., (2013). A review of school climate research. Review of Educational Research, 83, 357–385. doi:10.3102/0034654313483907. Chase P. A., Hilliard L., Geldhof G. J., Warren D., Lerner R., (2014). Academic achievement in the high school years: The changing role of school engagement. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 43, 884–896.doi: 10.1007/s10964-013-0085-4 Roorda, D. L., Koomen, H. M. Y., Spilt J. L., Oort F. J., (2011). The influence of affective teacher–student relationships on students’ school engagement and achievement: A meta-analytic approach. Review of Educational Research, 81, 493–529. doi:10.3102/0034654311421793. Henry K. L., Thornberry T. P., (2010). Truancy and escalation of substance use during adolescence. Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, 71, 115-124. Vaughn, M. G., Maynard, B. R. , Salas-Wright, C. P. , Perron, B. E. , & Abdon, A. . (2013). Prevalence and correlates of truancy in the us: results from a national sample. Journal of Adolescence, 36(4), 767-776. Giddens, A. (1984). Pp：328-329. The constitution of society: Outline of the theory of structuration. Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.

Chapter 2 discusses the fact that jihadism cannot be solely attributed to the disaffected young Muslims. A sizeable minority of jihadis consists of converts (from 8 percent to more than 20 percent, according to the European countries), as well as middle-class Muslims. Nevertheless, male disaffected Muslim youth, mostly from the first and the second generations, living chiefly in ghettoized neighborhoods, represent the major part of the jihadis in Europe. They come from at least three types of “slum subculture” which are marked by poverty, humiliation, and discontent. These are: the European slum subculture proper, the subculture of religious introversion (Salafism and Tabligh), and the subculture of violent religious confrontation (jihadism). These themes of poverty, humiliation, and discontent are discussed at length in this chapter and are reflected in interviews presented throughout, which were conducted by the author with some of the young men affected by these conditions. Also discussed are the ways in which secular society and its social freedoms contribute to the frustration and discontent expressed by these individuals.

This chapter extends the emphasis on signal and interface developed in Chapters 1 and 2 to the work of a writer usually positioned between colonial, anti-colonial, and decolonized perspectives. Mansfield’s interest in methods of telecommunication crystallized in stories about modern urban (mostly London) middle-class existence. But it did not diminish when she began in the final years of her life to draw increasingly on memories of her childhood and youth in New Zealand. Detailed analysis of the narrative structure of some of her best-known stories shows how signalling practices act as the catalyst for expressions of gendered and sexual identity. The late Auckland-set ‘The Stranger’ is compared to James Joyce’s ‘The Dead’. The chapter begins with an account of turn-of-the-century views of Englishness; and concludes with a discussion of Waterway (1938), by the Australian novelist Eleanor Dark.