Author: Karl Thompson

The exploitation of young people in the UK

Millions of young people are exploited at work through unpaid trial shifts, lower minimum wages for example.

Millions of young people in the UK are being treated unfairly at work. Around half of young workers are exploited in some way, for example through being underpaid. Young people lose up to £1.65 billion each year through wage theft, and over 100,000 are never paid for overtime at all.

This is according to some recent research from the Equality Trust published in 2023: Your Time, Your Pay. The primary purpose of this research was to assess young people’s knowledge, awareness and application of their employment rights. The research was based on a sample of 1018 16-24 years olds.

Examples of how young people are exploited at work include…

  • Unpaid trial shifts
  • Working without a contract 
  • Zero hours contracts
  • Lower minimum wages 
  • Not being auto-enrolled onto Pensions 
  • Lack of education about employment rights. 

The rest of this post outlines the economic challenges young people face, statistics and cased studies about young people being exploited at work and recommendations about how to improve things.

Economic challenges young people face

Young people are exploited in work despite facing huge economic challenges:

  • Young people suffered more from the Pandemic with school closures and higher rates of job losses.  Under 25s accounted for 60% of job losses during lockdowns between February 2020 – March 2021.
  • Young people face wage discrimination as employers are legally allowed to pay them less. The minimum wage for under 18s is a dismal £5.28 an hour. 
  • Relative scarcity of housing means rents have increased, and buying is simply out of reach for most under 25 year olds. For those who want to buy they have to save tens of thousands of pounds for a deposit. 
  • For those who choose to go to university, they are saddled with tens of thousands of pounds of debt. 
  • Recent high rates of inflation mean the cost of living is relatively higher for young people today compared to their parents when they were younger. 

As a result, it is the norm for young people to face ‘financial precarity’. A 2022 report found that 47% of young people (aged 16-25) are experiencing financial precarity. This number grew as young people got older, with 57% of 22-24-year-olds in a precarious financial situation. 

And yet despite these challenging times, many young people who have to work out of necessity or choose to work to get ahead suffer massive exploitation at the hands of their employers…

Young people being exploited at work: statistics 

The Equality Trust report found that…

  • 42% of young workers have been asked to work for no pay.
  • 51% of young people work overtime, over half have not always been paid for it. 
  • 38% of young people either do not have or do not know whether they have a written employment contract.
  • 16-17 year olds were the least likely age cohort to have a written employment contract with only 34% having a written contract. This compares to 59% of 18-21 year olds and 67% 22-24 year olds.
  • 40% of young people have been employed on a zero hour contract.
  • Almost two thirds of young people did not receive, or don’t know if they received, information about employment rights at school.
  • 73% of young people are not members of a trade union.
  • Only 37% of young people think their standard of living is better than their parent(s) or guardian(s).
Bar chart showing percentage of young people exploited at work.

Young people being exploited at work: case studies

The focus group revealed the following examples:

  • Unpaid trial shifts: One worker who did a 4 hour trial shift in an expensive homeware store who made a £50 sale despite receiving no training during that 4 hours and being reprimanded for using the till incorrectly.
  • Working without a contract: On person worked as an age verification checker where she went into off-licences and betting shops to see if they asked her proof of her age. She had to write detailed reports but had no formal contract. She saw the job advertised specifically to students on TikTok.
  • Working as bar staff at a music festival – One respondent reported that they had to spend £40 on their train ticket to event despite being told travel costs would be paid at their interview. The agency oversubscribed workers assuming some wouldn’t turn up so when she arrived for a shift at 7.00 a.m. she was told she wouldn’t be starting until 18.00.
  • One respondent reported a positive experience on working a zero hours contract for an administrative body where the flexibility was mutually beneficial.

Research Methods used in this report 

The polling was conducted by Survation in November 2022 and they surveyed 1,018 young people from across the UK. 

They also ran two focus groups with a total of nine young people; one to co-produce the questions for the survey and the second to analyse the results.

They ensured they sampled  a diverse group of young people from a range of socio-economic backgrounds. 

Recommendations

Based on the above findings the Equality Trust recommends that…

  • The government should abolish the National Minimum Wage rates based on a person’s age.
  • Unpaid trial shifts should be made illegal.
  • Expand automatic pension enrolment to qualifying over-16s. 
  • Schools and colleges need to do more employment rights based education.
  • Trades Unions could do more to attract younger people.
Signposting and relevance to A-level sociology

This is a fantastic example of how to use focus group interviews in social research. Focus groups really work here because they give respondents a chance to share their experiences of being exploited with their peers. By being able to listen and respond in a supportive environment this should help encourage respondents to open up. The topic isn’t so sensitive as to require one on one interviews.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Sources/ Find out More

For more research from the Equality Trust.

Citizens Advice: Check your Rights if you’re under 18.

Increasing Billionaire wealth in Britain, and increasing inequality in society 


The wealth of billionaires in Britain has increased by 1100% in the 32 years between 1990 and 2022. 

  • In 1990 there were 15 billionaires who controlled £53.9 billion in wealth.  
  • By 2022 there were 177 billionaires who controlled £653.1 in wealth. 

These increases reflect a wider increase in inequality in the UK more generally. However the increase in wealth at the very top, such as billionaires, has been the most extreme. 

bar chart showing increase in billionaires in the UK from 1990 to 2022.

Most of the increase has been driven by an increase in the number of billionaires, but there has also been a concentration at the very top. The top two billionaire households in 2022 controlled as much wealth as the bottom half of billionaire households in 1990. 

Billionaire wealth has increased due to the structure of the UK economy. It has continued to increase post-Covid despite the wider population facing economic crises. 

Billionaires are not uniquely hard working, or intelligent, or creative. Instead, billionaires are better seen as the primary beneficiaries of an economic system which produces huge levels of poverty and inequality, and has left the UK particularly vulnerable to the multiple, overlapping crises we have faced over the past few years.

This blog post is a summary of ‘Billionaire Britain’, a report from the Equality Trust.

Measuring Billionaire Wealth 

There is no quality data source on wealth in the UK at the national level. This is because there is no systematic recording of wealth when it is taxed. The Wealth and Assets survey suffers under-reporting from the very wealthiest households. 
The Times Richlist is the most comprehensive source, but this could miss out on various assets and under-report wealth. 

Billionaire Britain uses data from the Times Rich List. 

From a research methods perspective this is an interesting example of how power shapes data collection. The very richest are the most powerful and the UK government doesn’t systematically track data on their wealth. In fact, tracking is poor that Billionaire Britain estimates at least £4.4 billion of property investment in the UK has been bought by corrupt individuals. 

Why are there more billionaires in Britain?

Two underlying structural changes have enabled massive accumulation by those at the top: 

  • Firstly, the financialisation of the UK means that those with wealth now have greater returns on their investments. This is due to corporations focusing on profits over wages and the inflation of asset prices. 
  • Secondly, deregulation has resulted in less restrictions and fewer taxes on wealth. This has attracted more wealth to the UK. 

Of the 177 on the 2022 billionaire rich list 42 gained their wealth through investing and 39 through real estate. 

Financialisation is where the financial industry becomes more important to the economy as a whole. 

The finance sector consists of a range of different industries from investment companies (including real estate investments), stocks and shares funds, hedge funds, and insurance and pensions. 

In a primarily finance based economy, the production of tangible products is less important, and many of the financial services seek to make returns trading financial instruments without creating anything of any value. 

One consequence of a financialized economy is asset price inflation. Financial companies invest in assets such as houses and land for a return (rather than seeking to develop land or improve houses themselves) which pushes the prices up. 

A second and related consequence is more households taking on debt. This is increasingly required to buy more expensive assets, such as housing. 

A third consequence is more companies seeking profit over wages and quality services. They become more concerned with providing dividends to shareholders over paying decent wages. 

In terms of service provision, energy and water companies have extracted billions in profits over the last years. Shareholders have got richer as a result. However the infrastructure is now crumbling in many cases, as evidenced with things such as leaky water pipes. 

All of the above has resulted in a more unequal society as a few benefit from financialisation. Meanwhile at the bottom end people have relatively less money AND worse services. 

What are the solutions to increased wealth and the inequality this causes? 

The Equality Trust suggests five courses of action…

  1. Introduce a progressive wealth tax. That means the wealthier you are the more tax you pay! 
  2. Make corporate ownership more democratic, so more people have a say in what happens to profits. 
  3. Regulate the financial sector more. 
  4. Return essential services to public ownership. 
  5. Improve tax transparency and end tax havens. 
  6. Create more community wealth funds to invest in areas that need it most.

Relevance to A-level sociology

This material is an important update for anyone interested in wealth and income inequalities in the UK.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Neo-Tribes

Neo-tribes based on chosen lifestyles and reflect the shift to postmodern society,

Neo-tribes are associations of consumer groups (such as consumers of dance music) who come together in particular settings where they express similar tastes. They do not form coherent groups outside those settings, but when they are together they are influenced by one another.

For example, at a rave, a person will assume the identity of a ‘raver’ for the night, and then resume an ordinary, mundane identity as a ‘worker’ Monday to Friday.

From subcultures to neo-tribes

Andy Bennett (1996) argued the term subculture is not useful for describing groups of young people who share similar tastes in style and music. Clearly defined youth subcultures do not exist among contemporary youth. Instead, young people assume identities in particular settings.

“There is very little evidence that even the most committed groups of youth stylists are in any way as ‘coherent’ or ‘fixed’ as the term ‘subculture’ implies. On the contrary, it seems to me that so-called youth ‘subcultures’ are prime examples of the shifting cultural affiliations which characterize late modern consumer societies”. (1)

There is more cross-filtration of styles these days, so that styles overlap with many different so-called ‘subcultures’. For example, dance music might sample aspects of reggae or even heavy metal, which leads to a breakdown in style-boundaries and more people identifying with each other from different style groups, which challenges the idea that there are distinct ‘subcultures’.

Dance music especially breaks down these barriers and encourages consumers to pick and mix from a range of styles and so youth identities are more multi-faceted than they once might have been.

The concept of ‘clubbing’ also challenges the idea of fixed, style based identities. Most ‘clubbers’ go to several different types of club night, and so ‘clubbing’ is a series of fragmented temporal experiences in which clubbers move through different crowds on different nights and assume different identities depending on the venue and theme of the night.

Postmodernism and Neo-tribes

The concept of neo-tribes reflects the move from modern to postmodern society, as people move from having a ‘way of life’ to choosing ‘lifestyles’.

During modernity, identities tended to be based on ‘ways of life’ which were handed down through the generations based on locality, class and gender.

Bennet (1999) believes that contemporary identities in postmodern societies are based on ‘lifestyles’ rather than ‘ways of life’. Lifestyles and the identities expressed through them are chosen based on consumer preferences.

Neo-tribes are an example of such lifestyle choices, and people to move between different neo-tribes, expressing different identities.

People might choose a neo-tribe that reflects their social class background but this isn’t something shaped by society, it is a choice.

For example, Bennet argued that fans of the band Oasis adopt an image consisting of training shoes, football shirts and duffle coats, which is designed to illustrate their collective sense of a working class identity, however these individuals are not working class, this is a purely chosen, constructed and temporary identity.

Signposting

This material is mainly relevant to the culture and identity module, normally taught in the first year of A-level sociology.

The concept of neo-tribe is derived from the work of Michael Maffesoli (1996) who coined the term ‘tribus’ (or tribes) to describe contemporary youth.

Sources

Bennett, A (1999) Subcultures or Neo-Tribes? Rethinking the Relationship between Youth, Style and Musical Taste.

Are Tory funding cuts to blame for school closures?

Yes. The data clearly suggests a very strong correlation between Tory underfunding of schools closing because of unsafe crumbling concrete.

The Tories have had the money to spend on making school building safe. Instead they have chosen to spend the money of new free schools. This appears to have been a political decision to please mainly middle class parents.

Of course the Tories, and especially Rishi Sunak say they are not to blame. However in this case they appear to be just plain lying. The data suggest the opposite: that Tory education policy has failed leading to mass school closures. This was totally preventable.

Unsafe schools closing due to crumbling concrete

More than 100 schools are fully or partially closed this September 2023 due to crumbling concrete. The problem is that some of the buildings in these schools were built in the 1950s using reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete (RAAC). This concrete is now passed its use by date and is crumbling.

Back in 2018 a ceiling collapsed in a staffroom made from this concrete. Had people been in the room at the time it could have killed someone. This prompted a review of the safety of school buildings. In 2020 a senior education civil servant at the time advised improving 200 schools a year. However the now Prime Minister, then chancellor Rishi Sunak made the decision to only improve 50 schools a year.

The DFE’s own data shows the Torys have been chronically underfunding schools. It was estimated in 2021 that £5 billion would be needed for capital investment in schools. However only £3 billion was allocated.

Compared to the previous New Labour government the Tories have spent one third less on education investment during their time in power.

The data above is taken from this BBC News Article which is worth a watch to summarise this issue!

The Tories: putting the middle classes first?

Instead of choosing to make existing schools safe the Tories have instead chosen to spend almost £1 billion buying land for new Free Schools. Almost half of these have created spare capacity in already existing schools in local areas.

One interpretation of the above is as follows:

Tory education policy and funding has prioritised pleasing middle class parents. (These are typically the people who benefit from free schools). This has been at the expense of pupils attending schools with crumbling concrete.

So the Torys are prepared to put (probably poorer) pupils at risk of injury and death. All so middle class pupils can have a slightly better quality of education in free schools.

Relevance to A-level sociology

This material is relevant to the education topic within A-level sociology.

This seems to be another failure of Tory education policy in recent years.

It is also a failure of neoliberalism. Funding cuts are a big part of neoliberal policy. In this case they have resulted in school closures. This is backward social development.

Fun and Creative Ideas for Studying Sociology:

Creative ideas for learning sociology include making mind maps and using images and metaphors.

Getting creative not only makes learning more fun, it also helps you to better understand complex sociological theories and concepts and remember them more efficiently.

I have selected below some creative strategies which should help you with learning A-level sociology.

Combining Concepts…

Select two concepts, theories, sociologists, research studies, news events, and try to make the links between them!

A chart or two containing such concepts with numbers up and down the sides may help with this!

Metaphors…

A metaphor is where you make one thing represent another in order to draw comparisons. Try to come up with metaphors for sociological perspectives, theories and even research studies.

For example, in terms of shapes Marxism can be represented by a triangle, which reflects the class structure. Functionalism is more of a square, which reflects its concern with social order and regulation.

Keep an ideas notebook or videolog

Walk around town and observe people, interactions, adverts, shops, or watch the news or any programme.

Keep a notebook of what you observe and apply sociological theories and concepts to your daily observations.

If writing is too long winded, do a photo diary or video log instead, making it visual may actually help.

Model things

If you have some lego then you might like to spend some time making models to represent different sociological theories and concepts.

This may be a little time consuming, so maybe treat this a break activity which keeps the brain ticking over!

Mind Maps!

It may be obvious from this blog that I am a huge fan of mind maps. They really are a great way of summarising complex ideas which mirror the way the brain works: one central point for each map, and then a few main points coming off the central hub and then further sub branches…

Mind map example:

NB maps can be even more effective if you make them more visual by using pictures where possible rather than just words!

Play the expert sociologist

Think of any social problem, such as a high crime rate or a failing school and either plan a research project to figure out why.

Alternatively, imagine you are a government advisor and think up social policies which may solve the problem. Or make the case for a revolution!

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Ethnicity in the 2021 UK National Census

The government added 2 additional options for ethnicity in the 2021 Census: ‘Roma’ and ‘Black British Other’. However, they rejected 53 out of 55 requests for more categories!

Following the 2011 Census the government engaged in a consultation in 2015 with several organisations and individuals over whether they needed to increase the number of ethnic categories. Based on feedback from 46 organisations and 86 individuals, most of them found the existing categories acceptable, but they received 55 requests for more categories. 

Some of the examples of requests for new categories included Somali, Jewish and Kashmiri. 

Of these 55 requests, only two changes were judged to be worth including in the 2021 Census:

  • Including a separate ‘ROMA’ tick box under the ‘White’ category, rather than putting this together with GYPSY. 
  • Including an ‘other’ BLACK category besides AFRICAN and CARIBBEAN, and allowing respondents to write in details.  

The board of Census experts made their decisions to accept the above two changes for new ethnic categories. They used a standard evaluation procedure in which each category was scored the basis of:

  • User need: was there a need to gather more specific information (easily) on the specific new categories of ethnic group?
  • Lack of alternative information: was there no where else information could be found out about the suggested new group? (This was the case with the Roma category).
  • Clarity of data collection: some categories were rejected because of too much overlap. For example, offering a ‘Kashmiri’ option would probably reduce the number of people ticking ‘Indian’ or ‘Pakistan’. Some of the people who ticked ‘Kashmiri’ would identify as BOTH Pakistani and Kashmiri, or both Indian and Kashmiri. 
  • Consistency with the 2011 Census: taking reliability and comparison with previous data into account. 

In many cases the Census team decided ethnicity information was already covered already in the ‘religion’ section or by simply allowing respondents to write in their responses would yield sufficient information compared to a fresh tick box.  

Current list of ethnicity options in the 2021 UK Census…

list of ethnicity options in the 2021 UK census

Analysis of changes to ethnicity options: disrespecting Diversity?


It feels a little like The Census paid lip service to this process rather than seriously considering increasing the number of available categories.

They sampled less than 100 individuals outside of formal organisations. Of these, 40% of respondents requested a change, which is significant, and then rejected most of these. 

I imagine the reason for this was practical: once you start increasing the number of ethnicity options the form rapidly becomes impractically long. For example, if you included ‘Somali’, it seems a bit unfair to not include every African subcategory, which would mean dozens more boxes, and so on for every other suggestion. 

Having an ethnicity section with possibly 200 options would simply be off putting. Allowing respondents to write in their responses means they’ve already covered the ‘inclusion’ aspect. 

In terms of data analysis, when the Census is online, it’s easy enough to filter by written-in responses.

Having said that it is worth noting that the Census probably tells us very little about identity. It doesn’t tell us what ethnicity means to the respondents.

Signposting and sources

This material is mainly relevant to the Culture and Identity option, usually taught in the first year of A-level sociology.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Why is there an increase in non-UK university students?

mainly it is all about the money!

The number of university places taken up by non-UK students is increasing much faster than for UK students.

If we go back to the university year ending 2019 and compare this to 2022 we find the following:

  • The number of non-UK student enrolments increased by 37% between 2019 to 2022.
  • The number of UK student enrolments increased by only 11% over the same period.

Overall there were approximately 400 000 more enrolments in 2022 compared to 2019. Around 40% of these went to non-UK students.

Domicile20192022Raw increasePercent increase
Total UK1,960,3202,182,560222,24011.34
Total Non-UK496,110679,970183,86037.06
Non-UK enrolments increasing much faster than UK enrolments.

(Source: HESA stats)

If we put this in a graph we see the increase is faster for non-UK students:

graph showing increase in non UK HE students

If we do a dual axis scale (Non-UK on the right) the faster increase of non-UK students is clearer:

increase in non-UK students dual axis grapht

One quarter of Russel Group University places now go to foreign students. HALF of UCL and LSE places go to foreign students.

The top two countries where non-UK students come from are China, followed by India. Together these account for around 30% of non-UK student enrolments

Around 80% of non-UK students are now from outside the EU, with EU applications and enrolments having fallen since Brexit.

More pain for UK university applicants

If this trend towards universities taking proportionally more non-UK continues it means relatively fewer places for UK students.

It means even more competition in a year when A-level results have gone back down to 2019 levels.

Why are there more foreign students…?

Mainly it is all about the money. UK universities charge higher fees for foreign students. While UK students typically pay around £10 000 per year, the fees for foreign students can be four times that amount for some courses!

This is also a global success story. There is a growing middle class in China and India hence increasing demand for UK university places.

From a neoliberal perspective this is how a global market should work. British universities are some of the best in the world, and in a global free market they are free to sell those services to anyone.

There’s also the fact that universities need the extra income from foreign students to provide a better service. British students will also benefit from this.

And there is nothing stopping British students from applying to universities abroad, either. (Well, other than the fact that most of them can only speak English).

So maybe our default reaction shouldn’t be to whinge about this!?! It is just globalisation as usual, after all!

Having said that, one potential downside to this is that it’s poorer students who are going to lose out the most. As Britain’s best universities become increasingly dominated by a global middle class. It is likely that the poor working class British students are those who wil struggle to secure places!

Sources/ Find out more

The Daily Mail: Middle Class Students Face Losing Out on Places

This material is relevant to the education module within A-level sociology.

Income and Wealth Differences by Age in the U.K.

Adults aged 60-64 are nine times wealthier than adults aged 30-34. (ONS wealth survey, 2018-202.

Older generations enjoyed higher incomes in their peak earning years compared to today’s workers. Older people are much wealthier than younger people today.

Income Differences by Age

The Baby Boomers enjoyed high incomes for most of their working lives because they were part of a relatively small birth cohort and their peak earning years were before globalisastion really kicked into gear.

When China opened up to world trade in the 1990s this meant British workers had to compete with cheaper labour from abroad. By this time most of the Boomers had most of their working years behind them and were well set up financially to cope with this.

The 2008 financial crisis changed things dramatically for the worse, and wages for younger generations have been going down in relative terms. 30 year old Millennials today have 4% less disposable income than Gen X had when they were a similar age.

Moreover, younger generations feel as if they are more hard done by, meaning they are more likely to question the social contract. 40% of Millennials think they have a low income compared to only 30% of Generation X.

The Stereotype of spend-happy youth

Younger generations are often criticised for being materialistic and more likely to report they think it is important to be rich, with some commentators suggesting the young can learn lessons in frugality from their elders.

However, the stats suggest younger people in fact spend less, and thinking it’s important to be rich is a function of them having lower and less secure incomes!

The over 50s account for one third of the population but 47% of consumer spending. 55-64 year olds spend around 20% on consumer items than 24-35 year olds.

Wealth distribution by age

Wealth is mainly concentrated among older people.

Since 2007 nearly all the extra wealth created has gone to the over 45s, with over two thirds going to the over 65s. Mostly driven by the increase in property prices.

This wealth hasn’t come because of frugality, but because of government policies creating windfalls: low interest rates, printing money keeping property rates high.

Bar chart showing median wealth distribution by age, UK 2018-2020.

And the ability to save for the younger generations has been harmed by stagnating wages and student loans.

Younger people increasingly rely on their parents helping them out financially, most obviously when they purchase their first house. In 2017 34% of first time buyers received help from their parents to buy, and the Bank of Mum and Dad was in the top ten of mortgage lenders!

However this only serves to increase inequality: those at the top are better able to help out their kids, who get richer faster while those at the bottom have nothing.

And it’s a long wait for inheritance, even for those lucky enough to be in receipt of one: age 61 is the average age.

Despite all of the above, there is no mass resentment against the old, and no real desire for wealth to be passed down en masse. The main problem is the inequality of wealth within the top generation and the economic inequality this increases across generations.

Sources and Signposting

ONS: Wealth distribution by age and other characteristics dataset.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Modern and Postmodern Subcultures

modern subcultures have strong boundaries and high commitment, postmodern subcultures are weaker and more fragmented.

Modern subcultures have a strong sense of group identity with high degrees of commitment demanded from members, and a homogenous style with the subculture providing the main source of identity for members. They also tend to be political, social class aligned, anti-media and are seen as authentic by members.

Postmodern subcultures on the other hand have a fragmented sense of identity, require low commitment, have a mixture of styles and and are are only one of multiple identity sources for members. They tend to be apolitical, pro-media and focused mainly on style and image only.

ModernPostmodern
Group identityFragmented identity
Stylistic homogeneityStylistic heterogeneity
Strong boundary maintenanceWeak boundary maintenance
Subculture provides main identityMultiple stylistic identities
High degree of commitment Low degree of commitment
Membership perceived as permanent Transient attachment expressed
Low rates of subcultural mobilityHigh rates of subcultural mobility
Stress on beliefs and valuesFascination with style and image
Political gesture of resistance Apolitical sentiments
Anti-media sentimentsPositive attitude towards media
Self-perception as authentic Celebration of the inauthentic

These two ideal types of subculture were developed by Muggleton (2000) to test whether subcultures today were more postmodern.

Muggleton carried out interviews with 57 young people (43 male, 14 female) who were approached in pubs or clubs in Preston and Brighton between 1993 and 1995 to determine whether we have modern or postmodern subcultures today.

Postmodern 1990s Subcultures

Muggleton found that most young people were concerned to express their individuality and did not express strong affiliation to any one subculture.

They saw belonging to a subculture as primarily about expressing their individuality, how they were different from other people within that apparent subculture – standing out was important.

Those interviewed also fitted more to postmodern subcultures in terms of their ideas of the self, commitment and appearance, but many had a long term commitment. to their subcultures and there was little evidence of switching between them.

People did change identities over time, but this wasn’t constant switching, rather gradually transformative.

Muggleton found little evidence of there being divisions between subcultures, mainly because the boundaries had become blurred, and all seemed to share a resistance to the mainstream, although they were generally apolitical.

The media was also an important part of constructing the subculture.

Overall subcultures in the 1990s were best characterised as neo-tribes.

Not purely postmodern

Subcultures were modern, but still seen as authentic sources of identity by members, they weren’t just seen as being about artificial play!

Authentic Identity was seen in terms of the way one felt, rather than dress, so one was a true punk if they felt like one, it wasn’t about dress or appearance.

Subcultures were liminal: in between social identities – they were collective expressions and celebrations of individualism.

Standing out was important, but so was fitting in.

rave culture
Rave culture: fitting in while standing out!

Evaluation

Sampling was poor – there was no attempt to identify committed members.

Blackman (2005) examines Muggleton’s own data and believes he underplays the extent to which there is modernist regulation and rules of subcultures and he also failed to see the political agenda adopted by much of rave culture against the 1996 Criminal Justice Act.

Signposting and Sources

This material is usually taught as part of the Culture and Identity option within A-level sociology.

Part of this post was adapted from Haralambos and Holborn (2013) Sociology Themes and Perspectives 8th Edition.

Muggleton, D (2000) Inside Subculture: The Meaning of Style

Image Source.

A-level results are down AND the attainment gap has increased

material deprivation still affects educational achievement!

The A-level exam boards in England decided to smackdown the 2023 A-level results this year. They are now back to the pre-pandemic levels of 2019.

line chart showing trends in A-level results 2019 to 2023, England and Wales.

For the top A and A* grades the trend looks like this:

  • 2019: 25.2%
  • 2021: 35.9%
  • 2023: 26.5%

So a slight, but not significant increase in top A-level grades in 2023 compared to 2019.

This clearly demonstrates that the 2020 and 2021 results were fantasy results. This is unsurprising given that they were awarded by teachers. The 2022 results, based on pre-release exams, were merely a half way step back to this years. Last years results now seem as ridiculous as the 2020 and 2021 results. Clearly this was an attempt to maintain credibility in the exam system by not bringing back down the results too suddenly.

None of this is the fault of the students, it’s the fault of the people running the education system. You might even argue the government and exam boards did the best they good faced with the uncertainty of the pandemic.

The problem now is that this year’s cohort are the real victims of this uncertainty and flawed responses. They are now the ones with the relatively worse grades. They now face huge competition to get into scarce university places. And they are the ones that had their schooling disrupted just as much as the previous three years of students.

What a mess!

One saving grace

The one saving grace of all this is that we can probably regard this years exam results as valid JUST FOR THIS COHORT.

What I mean by this is that individuals who achieved A grades this year are probably better at exams than those who achieved C grades.

What you can’t do is compare this years results with 2020-2022. So we have a reliability problem!

  • 2019 A-levels measured students’ ability to sit exams under ‘normal conditions’ compared to previous years.
  • 2020 and 2021 measured how far teachers were prepared to take the p*** and give their students inflated grades based on their theories of what the maximum they could possibly achieve.
  • 2022 measured student’s ability to sit exams based on having pre-release knowledge of some the material they’d be assed on.
  • 2023 exam results measured students’ ability to sit exams under ‘normal conditions’ having had significant disruption to their schooling during the pandemic.

NB please note that by ‘better at exams’ that’s all I mean. A student’s ability to get an A* doesn’t necessarily mean they are more intelligent or a better potential employee than someone who gets a B grade.

The main reason for this (IMO) is that some students are better trained for exams than others. And exam training is a very narrow skill, intelligence more generally is a much broader concept.

The attainment gap has increased

The education attainment gap between private and state schools is now wider than it was before the pandemic. 47.4% of A-level entries from private schools were awarded A or A* grades compared to just 22% from state schools.

bar chart showing that schools in richer areas get better A-level results than poorer areas, England and Wales.

To my mind this suggests privately educated students have been more shielded from the disruptive effects of the pandemic over the last three years compared to state school students.

This makes sense given the material advantages these wealthy students have. Such as:

  • smaller class sizes
  • better access to online learning
  • private tuition.

Some of these resources would have been put into exam training of course, a key part of ‘hothousing’ private school children.

The attainment gap by region has also increased

If we breakdown regions in quintiles by deprivation we find that 30.3% of A-levels in the least deprived regions were awarded A and above compared to only 22.2 in the most deprived regions.

This means parental wealth and income affects educational achievement more generally. Private schools just have a more extreme advantage at the very top end. (Private schools account for around 7% of pupils, so 1/3rd of the top quintile.)

Relevance to A-level sociology

Unfortunately this shows that material deprivation still affects educational achievement.

To return to the homepage – revisesociology.com

Sources/ Find out More

The Guardian: Equality Depends on Education

TES: A-Level Results Reveal Worsening Rich-Poor Divide

FFT Education Data Lab: 2023 A-level Results

%d bloggers like this: