Subcultures: Sociology and Chicago School
This essay explores firstly the insight offered by applying aspects of the Chicago School’s theory, specifically the Concentric Zone Model and analysis of the City, to the subcultural group of gangs. Their ideas will be explored and contrasted with those in Brown, Vigil and Taylors 2012 article: “The Ghettoization of Blacks in Los Angeles: the Emergence of Street Gangs”. Further to this I will analyse the limitations of the Chicago Schools theory and contrast this with insight offered form the Birmingham School of thought.
The notion of culture can be conceptualised in a variety of different ways but in general terms can be purported to encompass the behavioural norms of a society and the knowledge, beliefs and laws which inform their customs (Tylor, 1871). Similarly, the definition of what constitutes a subculture is contested and open to multiple interpretations. The common theme of subcultural definitions includes the notion that subcultures “construct, perceive and portray” themselves as isolated groups separate from the parent culture (Macdonald, 2001, 152). The relationship between culture and subculture can arguably be understood through the subcultures “subordinate, subaltern and subterranean” relationship principally the subculture’s inferior status which has been conferred through conceptual difference (Thornton, 1995, 4).
The Chicago School was established in 1982 and remained at the pinnacle of sociological thought through to the late 1950s. The American sociological tradition, which was influenced greatly by the work of Durkheim, Simmel and Tonnies, has focused largely on the ecological model of society and on the emergence of subcultures, a result of urbanization with the City at the Crux of social investigation (Williams, 2007). Central to the school’s work on the city is Park and Burgess Concentric Zone Model which uses an amalgamation of ethnographic methods and ecology to construct a diagram of urban land use (Macionis and Plummer, 2005).
The notion of culture can be conceptualised in a variety of different ways but in general terms can be purported to encompass the behavioural norms of a society and the knowledge, beliefs and laws which inform their customs (Tylor, 1871). Similarly, the definition of what constitutes a subculture is contested and open to multiple interpretations. The common theme of subcultural definitions includes the notion that subcultures “construct, perceive and portray” themselves as isolated groups separate from the parent culture (Macdonald, 2001, 152). The relationship between culture and subculture can arguably be understood through the subcultures “subordinate, subaltern and subterranean” relationship principally the subculture’s inferior status which has been conferred through conceptual difference (Thornton, 1995, 4).
The Chicago School was established in 1982 and remained at the pinnacle of sociological thought through to the late 1950s. The American sociological tradition, which was influenced greatly by the work of Durkheim, Simmel and Tonnies, has focused largely on the ecological model of society and on the emergence of subcultures, a result of urbanization with the City at the Crux of social investigation (Williams, 2007). Central to the school’s work on the city is Park and Burgess Concentric Zone Model which uses an amalgamation of ethnographic methods and ecology to construct a diagram of urban land use (Macionis and Plummer, 2005).
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