A concept I’m going to use is Marxism. Marxists such as Clarke would say that youth subcultures work for capitalism, as they help to socialize children into their class roles, without them realising it is happening. They keep the different classes apart, and in doing so alienate them from one another and help to foster suspicion and fear. This they would say is shown in the way youth sub culture in our schools seems to be based on class, and the behaviour within them dictated by what they subconsciously assume to be their future. Townies are mainly working class and misbehave at school because they see this as the role dictated by their sub culture, meaning they do not get any qualifications and end up doing boring, low paid jobs. This results in class replication, which ensures smooth running of the capitalist machine, and in a way which leads us to believe that what happens is what is right and fair, due to the perception of schools as meritocracies.
Another concept I’m going to use is Functionalism. Functionalists such as Eisenstadt would disagree with the idea of youth subcultures replicating class. They would say that youth subcultures are more a form of support for youth, and perform the function of easing the transition from child to adult and in this way, they help to maintain social order. They would say that youth subcultures such as ‘greebos’ give youth a sense of identity, status and belonging, which they do not receive within the family during this period of transition. Therefore, they do nothing to maintain or replicate class structure and capitalism.
WORD COUNT 491
Main Research Method and Reasons
The population will be made up of all school children in England in Key Stage three of the school system. They are already in a sampling frame, divided by LEAs, and then individual schools. Semi stratified sampling will be used, one school will be chosen from each LEA at random, and then all children in the relevant years in that school will be used.
Closed question questionnaires will be used to collect the data in this explanatory survey. One theoretical reason for this is because they will collect quantifiable data, a Positivist approach, which is more useful in this case. This can be proved on the grounds of reliability; quantifiable data allows the research to be repeated and the results compared so as to check for bias. Quantifiable data also provides the opportunity for generalisation from a sample, as the data can be compared and contrasted, and this is essential when investigating this aim. Quantifiable data also increases validity; as the person writing the questionnaire asks all the questions without input from the candidate then they should get the information back that they need to answer their original aim, although this does also raise the issue of the imposition problem mentioned later.
Theoretically, Interpretivist methods such as unstructured interviews and observation would not be useful in this case, as they would not provide enough standardised comparison and generalisation on which to investigate our aim. Positivist methods are also more useful in this survey as it aims to investigate trends rather than attitudes.
On a practical level, questionnaires also avoid interviewer bias. There is no one to influence the results other than the person answering the questions, whereas interviews can be biased in that they may lead an interviewee towards a certain answer, by either their personality and opinions that the interviewee is aware of, their order of questioning or their general rapport with the interviewee. For example, teenage boys may be keen to exaggerate their masculinity to a female interviewer, and in the process lie about themselves.
Another practical reason for the use of questionnaires is the ease with which they can be conducted. As long as it is possible to get the schools to co-operate, it would take less manpower, time and money to distribute questionnaires to schools and have teachers oversee their completion in lessons than it would to interview them or observe them.
Ethically, questionnaires are also a good choice. The candidate knows exactly what they are participating in, unlike with covert observation. There is also the advantage that if the candidate is engaging in illegal activity of any sort, unlike with participant observation the researcher does not become involved and therefore become criminally implicated.
WORD COUNT 451
Potential Problems
One practical issue could be getting schools to co-operate. Without their support the survey would become impossible. Even with their support, response rate may be low, as things do not always go to plan, and teachers cannot force pupils to complete questionnaires. This is a real problem, with one postal questionnaire, the Hite report; there was a 3% return rate. This means that if your population is geographically dispersed as this one is, your results can become unrepresentative.
There is also the practical problem of the environment in which the questionnaires are completed, and the social context. The sociologist is not present, so cannot ensure that conditions are standardised. There is no way of knowing if they were completed individually, or whether questions were discussed, which would taint the responses. There is also no way of knowing if the right person filled in the questionnaire, and whether they took it seriously.
There is the ethical issue of using children under 16. It may be necessary to seek parental permission, and this would be timely and inconvenient, and could again alter the response rate and damage the quality of representation of the sample.
Question design is another practical matter to be considered. It can be difficult to create a questionnaire that is free from leading and ambiguous questions. This would lead to bias and the undermining of objectivity. There is also the theoretical issue, the imposition problem. The writer is imposing their questions on the candidate, meaning they are in way directing the candidate, undermining objectivity and validity.
Theoretically, Interpretivists would argue that methods such as unstructured interviews and observation are vastly superior to questionnaires, as they uncover meanings behind actions rather then just establishing the facts, and they emphasise validity. This is because these methods attempt to look at the situation through the eyes of the people themselves, verstehen, and let them speak for themselves about what they see as important and useful. Questionnaires do not take into account the fact that whilst people may share the same views, there reasons for doing so may be totally different.
WORD COUNT 348
TOTAL WORD COUNT 1,412
