Subcultural phenomena continue to draw attention from many areas of contemporary society, including the news media, the marketing and fashion industries, concerned parents, religious, and other citizen groups, as well as academia. Research into these phenomena has spanned the humanities and social sciences, and the subcultural theories that underlie this work are similarly interdisciplinary. Subcultural Theory brings these diverse analytic issues together in a single text, offering readers a concise discussion of the major concepts and debates that have developed over more than eighty years of subcultural research, including style, stratification, resistance, identity, media and "post subcultures". The text emphasizes methods, concepts, and analysis rather than mere descriptions of individual subcultures, all the while ensuring readers will gain insight into past and present youthful subcultures, including mod, punk, hardcore, straightedge, messenger, goth, riot grrrl, hip-hop, skinhead, and extreme metal, among others. The book closes with an assessment of the subculture concept as a viable and useful sociological tool in comparison with other fields of study including social movements and fandom.

First Published in 2002. It is easy to see that we are living in a time of rapid and radical social change. It is much less easy to grasp the fact that such change will inevitably affect the nature of those disciplines that both reflect our society and help to shape it. Yet this is nowhere more apparent than in the central field of what may, in general terms, be called literary studies. ‘New Accents’ is intended as a positive response to the initiative offered by such a situation. Each volume in the series will seek to encourage rather than resist the process of change. To stretch rather than reinforce the boundaries that currently define literature and its academic study.

First published in 1966, The Delinquent Solution presents a study of crime associated with the nature of subcultures. The book discusses issues such as the concept and theory of subcultures, the life of delinquent gangs, and the English experience of delinquent subcultures. It also takes an in-depth look at the Stepney and Poplar survey on crime from 1960, analysing both statistical data and more informal observations. Although the book was written over forty years ago, the issues discussed remain relevant and strong areas of interest.

The Subcultural Imagination discusses young adults in subcultures and examines how sociologists use qualitative research methods to study them. Through the application of the ideas of C. Wright Mills to the development of theory-reflexive ethnography, this book analyses the experiences of young people in different subcultural settings, as well as reflecting on how young people in subcultures interact in the wider context of society, biography and history. From Cuba to London, and Bulgaria to Asia, this book delves into urban spaces and street corners, young people’s parties, gigs, BDSM fetish clubs, school, the home, and feminist zines to offer a picture of live sociology in practice. In three parts, the volume explores: history, biography and subculture; practising reflexivity in the field; epistemologies, pedagogies and the subcultural subject. The book offers cutting edge theory and rich empirical research on social class, gender and ethnicities from both established and new researchers across diverse disciplinary backgrounds. It moves the subcultural debate beyond the impasse of the term’s relevance, to one where researchers are fully engaged with the lives of the subcultural subjects. This innovative edited collection will appeal to scholars and students in the areas of sociology, youth studies, media and cultural studies/communication, research methods and ethnography, popular music studies, criminology, politics, social and cultural theory, and gender studies.

Anomie, strain and subcultural theories are among the leading theories of crime. Anomie theories state that crime results from the failure of society to regulate adequately the behavior of individuals, particularly the efforts of individuals to achieve monetary success. Strain theories focus on the impact of strains or stressors on crime, including the inability to achieve monetary success through legal channels. And subcultural theories argue that some individuals turn to crime because they belong to groups that excuse, justify or approve of crime. This volume presents the leading selections on each theory, including the original statements of the theories, key efforts to revise the theories, and the latest statements of each theory. The coeditors, Robert Agnew and Joanne Kaufman, are prominent strain theorists; and their introductory essay provides an overview of the theories, discusses the relationship between them, and introduces each of the selections.

Across America, crime is a consistent public concern. The authors have produced a comprehensive work on major criminological theories, combining classical criminology with new topics, such as Internet crime and terrorism. The text also focuses on how criminology shapes public policy.

The author critically examines the assumptions underlying drug prohibition and explores the contradictions of drug prevention policies.