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.
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.
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.
Modern
Postmodern
Group identity
Fragmented identity
Stylistic homogeneity
Stylistic heterogeneity
Strong boundary maintenance
Weak boundary maintenance
Subculture provides main identity
Multiple stylistic identities
High degree of commitment
Low degree of commitment
Membership perceived as permanent
Transient attachment expressed
Low rates of subcultural mobility
High rates of subcultural mobility
Stress on beliefs and values
Fascination with style and image
Political gesture of resistance
Apolitical sentiments
Anti-media sentiments
Positive 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: 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
Postmodern Feminists argue that both men and women need to be liberated from the idea of heteronormativity: the idea that heterosexual male and female gender identities are the norm.
Historically, the idea that there are just two simple binary heterosexual identities comes from men and is one of the ways in which male power over women is maintained, with everything male being linked to the public sphere and everything female being linked to the domestic sphere.
For postmodern feminists, there isn’t a simple divide between biological male = masculine and biological female = feminine. Rather, everything about sex, sexuality and gender identity are fluid, and all gender identities are equally valid.
However, the dominant binary heterosexual male-female discourse makes it difficult for people who don’t ‘fit’ into ‘normal’ gender identities to be themselves, and raising awareness of the oppressive nature of the concept of ‘heteronormativity’ and celebrating gender differences and diversity are two of the main focuses of postmodern feminism.
Postmodern Feminist Philosophy
Postmodern feminism can also be called poststructuralist feminism or ‘cultural turn’ feminism, reflecting the shift away from structural and materialist theories and towards post-structuralism and cultural theories more generally from the mid 1980s onwards.
It was developed mainly by academics in the humanities rather than social science academics or feminist activists and it is much more philosophical than previous feminisms.
Postmodern Feminism is associated with a radical social-constructionist position which holds that there is no reality beyond social construction: discourses (what is discussed) shape the ‘realities’ people experience.
For postmodern feminists discourses are created by powerful groups of males and it is possible to identify and expose male-centred discourses.
Five examples of postmodern feminist thinkers include Luce Irigaray, Judith Butler, Donna Harraway, Julia Kristeva and Helene Cixous.
The central focus for these thinkers is the ways in which female ‘subjectivity’ is constrained by textual and cultural forms defined and dominated by men.
One of the main focuses of postmodern feminism was to challenge thinking in dyads such as male-female and challenge the stability of dualistic ways of thinking, which it sees as repressive and to posit instead a liberating condition of the instability of all categories and truth claims.
In the condition of post modern liberation, men and women are free to choose to be a man, woman, gay, straight, trans or anything else, and identities are never fixed, they are fluid, multiple and fragmented.
The Genderbread person is a good example of postmodern feminist conceptions of gender, sexuality and identity.
Postmodern Feminists are especially critical of science’s dominant role in contemporary culture and its drive to fix gender and sex categories, which is seen as oppressive because this limits people’s capacities to shape their own (gender) identities.
Because of its focus on diversity, Postmodern Feminism is critical of Liberal and Marxist Feminist notions that we need to focus on politics for social change, and of Radical Feminism’s claims that there is a universal sisterhood with shared interests. Rather, there are diverse people who each need to be freed from the tyranny of truth so they can decide on how to shape their own gender identities going forwards!
The rest of this post will explore the work of Irigarary, Butler and Harraway in more depth.
Luce Irigaray
Luce Irigaray argues that all that is known in mainstream society and culture about women and sexual desire is known from a male perspective, resulting in a vision of women she calls ‘masculine feminine’.
One of Irigaray’s aims is to overturn this male perspective, so that women are seen in their own terms, or as the ‘feminine female’.
Throughout the history of Western thought, women have been depicted as not-men, as negative entities which are lacking.
Women’s identity and sexuality are represented in this way because of ‘phallogocentrism’ , the patriarchal view of the world expressed in and through language as defined by men, a vision which tries to ‘freeze’ the meaning of ‘female’ and represent it in negative ways.
The task of theory is to liberate women from seeing themselves in such a way, and to realise that their own sexualities have plural dimensions which have the power to change female identities and escape the grip of phallogocentric culture.
Judith Butler
Judith Butler claims that there is no such as sex. More specifically, she means that the sex categories of biologically distinct ‘male’ and ‘female’ do not exist in the real world, these categories are just mental constructions, part of language (discourse), but not real.
In other words, ‘men’ and ‘women’ are just people who have been labelled ‘men’ and ‘women’ they are not, in reality, biologically distinct from one another. We just think these labels refer to real, distinct entities.
This goes beyond feminist theorising in the 1970s, when feminists such as Ann Oakley generally thought that sex and gender were two different things with biological sex being fixed at birth (male or female) and gender being the cultural norms. we attach to these two sexes (masculine-feminie). For feminist theory in the 1970s, liberation meant changing gender norms, but sex-differences were generally seen as something determined by nature, so not up for discussion.
Butler challenges these earlier feminist ideas , by arguing that the idea that there is a natural biological divide between men and women is also a construction of patriarchy.
For Butler, both sex and gender are not just attributes people ‘have’, they are what people ‘do’. People ‘perform gender’ through what Butler refers to as ‘stylized repetition of acts’ enacted through the most mundane day to day body language, movements and general deportment that when taken together give the impression of a fixed ‘gendered self’.
People become a ‘woman’ or a ‘man’ through the acts they perform, they aren’t already a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ at birth.
Feminist criticisms of science
Donna Harraway criticises the patriarchal organisation of science and the gendered categories it produces, which are disseminated through society.
Harraway is critical of the positivist view that science is objective and value free, instead arguing it is a product of capitalism, militarism, colonization and male domination.
Scientific knowledge is no less ideological than other forms of knowledge (or discourse).
Harraway argued that scientific knowledge emerges out of social practices, and is influenced by the backgrounds of scientists, the knowledge created is contingent on them and would be different if constructed by other people in other societies.
She analyses a series of experiments carried out in seventeenth-century England, emphasising that those networks were made up almost entirely of white, European, upper class males, and the male bias within those networks influenced the connection of male to active and female to passive, ideas which have continued to be a central part of patriarchal culture ever since
She also examined how the scientific study of primates was a key development in the political ordering between ‘nature’ and ‘culture’, ‘male’ and ‘female’ and ‘science’ and ‘ideology’.
However, because science is social in origins, it is not inherently patriarchal, it could potentially be reorganised to assist in female liberation.
Evaluations of Postmodern Feminism
Much of Postmodern Feminism isn’t grounded: it is not based in empirical evidence, rather it is based on freewheeling philosophy.
Deconstructive methods are purely negative, there is little positive about what we should do beyond criticising dominant discourses.
Signposting and sources
This material is mainly relevant to the sociology of the family, usually taught in the first year of study.
Jean Francois Lyotard (1924 to 1998) was a proponent of post-Marxist ideas.
Lyotard argued that knowledge had become fractured and fragmented in the ‘postmodern condition’, which was the title of his most famous book.
Lyotard developed his theory of knowledge by drawing on the work of two philosophers: Nietzsche and Wittgenstein who had both criticised modernist conceptions of knowledge for claiming there could be unproblematic, objective and absolute truth, and that science was the way to that truth.
Nietzsche and Wittgenstein both argued that there were a plurality of specific, localised truths which were relative to particular times and places. What counted as true in one context may not be true in another and there was no way of knowing which truth was ‘truer’ than others.
They also argued that we had to recognise the contingency and uncertainty of human knowledge.
Knowledge is subjective not objective.
Lyotard insisted that knowledge is always particular and subjective rather than universal and objective.
Different groups each have their own narratives which help them to make sense of the world and themselves, but each of these ‘mini-narratives’ is valid in its own right for each particular group and cannot be criticised or evaluated from the point of view of another, because no one narrative is more true than any other.
Narratives and language games
Narratives help to establish the social order of a society and narratives are developed through what Lyotard called language-games. Language-games are games in which participants try to assert that certain claims are true.
Each statement is a move in which participants are trying to get other people to accept their truth-claims as valid and reject the validity of other statements. Whoever wins the language game gains legitimacy or power over the truth.
Knowledge has always been relative, but at certain points in history some narratives have gained prominence and tried to cover up the truth that knowledge is relative – such as with religious world views, science or political ideologies such as Liberalism and Marxism.
Modernity and Metarranatives
in pre-modern societies the telling of stories, myths or legends was the principle language game.
The people with the right to speak these stories gained their legitimacy on the basis of who they were, on their authenticity as being born into that particular tribe and having had those stories passed down to them by their parents and grandparents.
However this changed in the 17th century with the onset of the Enlightenment…
The Enlightenment and Metanarratives
With the Enlightenment, language games were replaced with scientific ‘denotive games’ in which legitimacy was no longer based on an individual’s authenticity but on the extent to which statements stood up to testing according to agreed upon standards from by other people (other scientists in the case of science).
Scientific statements are subjected to rigorous testing by other scientists who either provide proof of a truth-claim another scientist is making or falsify that claim. Evidence found using the scientific method and rational argument are employed to establish the legitimacy of truth claims made by scientists.
Science attempted to maintain a distance between itself and other social conventions so that it could remain objective, and in doing so science established itself as a metanarrative (big stories which claim universal truths).
Scientists claimed they had access to superior knowledge based on the scientific method which was objective, and this would be the basis for emancipating humanity from the ignorance of primitive knowledge based on narratives which were in turn were legitimated by the status of the people telling those stories.
Scientists believed that their objective knowledge could form the basis for human progress.
However Lyotard criticised the ability of scientific institutions to be able to remain truly detached from the narratives of daily life, especially when science is funded by powerful institutions.
Political Metanarratives
Science was not the only ‘big story’ making claims to universal truths in modernity. According to Lyotard the two principle political metanarratives of modernity were Liberalism and Marxism.
Liberalism claimed that modernity was a period of increasing individual freedom and prosperity based on the spread of capitalism and democracy.
Marxism believed that Capitalism only advanced through subordinating the working classes and that in order to achieved true progress we needed to emancipate the working classes through revolution and communism.
However according to Lyotard both of the above are fictions, merely the idea of particular people who benefitted from trying to pass off these stories as truth.
The postmodern condition
Lyotard famously defined postmodern thought and the condition of postmodernity more generally as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’.
Starting from at least the 1950s, but certainly by the 1980s the majority of the population had people had started to be sceptical about the possibility science and reason could find universal truths. In other words a critical mass of people had become sceptical about the scientific metanarrative.
Also by the 1980s the majority of the population were sceptical about religious and political metanarratives such as Liberalism and Marxism and embraced the principles of doubt and uncertainty about everything.
Thus we can described society since the 1980s as postmodern because by that point the majority of the population had a postmodern outlook in terms of their attitude towards knowledge.
The postmodern condition and scientific knowledge
In science denotative games (the search for universal truth) are replaced by technical games as science turns more towards the most efficient way of achieving goals, rather than the search for absolute truth
Moreover for Lyotard in postmodern society knowledge increasingly becomes something which can be bought and sold, it is a market-product and thus most certainly not free from relativist context.
A mindset, not a period in history
For Lyotard the postmodern condition isn’t just a period in history like some other commentators on postmodernity have suggested, it is a mindset that has always existed.
Subjectivity, relativism and uncertainty have always been part of life, they were part of modernity too, but in modernity the postmodern mindset was subjugated by metanarratives which claimed a monopoly on truth.
Evaluations of Lyotard
Lyotard’s view of knowledge as subjective does open up the possibility for individuals to be free from those in power who claim they have access to the universal truth or the best path to progress.
However there are at least two major problems with his theory:
There are some contradictions in Lyotard’s work. He claims that all knowledge is subjective and yet he seems to be claiming to have found the ‘truth’ of how knowledge systems have progresses from pre-modern through modern and now postmodern.
If we accept the view that knowledge is subjective and that there is no universal truth it makes it difficult to criticise anything, which means Capitalism has a free for all in which those with money and power can choose to legitimate any system of knowledge they choose and the rest of us have no real basis to criticise the truth claims those in power are making.
Jean Francois Lyotard FAQ
What is the postmodern condition?
Lyotard defined the postmodern condition as an ‘incredulity towards metanarratives’. What he meant by this is that the postmodern mindset rejects claims to universal truth and accepts that there are a plurality of truths which are context-dependent, relative and subjective. The postmodern condition is thus one of epistemological uncertainty.
What is a metanarrative?
Metanarratives are overarching stories which claim to be able to explain everything in the world and they tend to do so in the name of increasing human emancipation or freedom.
What’s the difference between the postmodern condition and postmodernity for Lyotard?
The postmodern condition is a mindset: scepticism attitude to the possibility of objective knowledge and universal truth. For Lyotard when the majority of the population have this mindset, as was the case by the 1980s, we can talk of having entered the historical period of postmodernity.
Jean Baudrillard (1929 to 2007) argued that material reality was disappearing and being replaced by a system of signs, leading to a social world which had no objective material reality at all, but rather one that was being continually produced by an endless series of signifiers.
In this new social reality all objects became manufactured commodities, devoid of any original meanings or material ‘use-value’ they once had.
Baudrillard’s early works were published in the late 1960s and early 1970s and he drew on the post-structuralist thinking which was influential at that time. Initially he focused on developing a critique of consumer culture, but into the 1980s and 1990s he started to develop his better known ideas about there being no underlying reality other than hyperreality.
Baudrillard is usually classified in social theory text books as both a post-Marxist and a postmodern thinker.
A postmodern critique of Marxism
Baudrillard developed a criticism of Marx’s analysis of capitalism and especially his concept of use-value (a concept which was fundamental to Marx’s theories of alienation and exploitation, see FAQs below for an explanation).
The ‘use-value’ of an object derives from that object’s material qualities. For example a coat’s use value is that it keeps you warm and dry, and a car’s use value is that it transports you to places in relative speed and comfort.
For much of modernity the meaning of objects lay in their use-value, a coat meant something that kept you warm, a car meant something which was faster than a horse and more comfortable than a bus.
However, this changes in age of postmodernity when the production of signs, not physical commodities increasingly becomes the key factor of social life the symbolic value of objects becomes more important than the the use value of objects as a source of shared meaning.
For example the meaning of a coat lies not in the coat’s utility but in the branding of that coat, in the labels attached to it, in whatever signs marketers have decided to attach to it.
In postmodernity the material reality of the underlying objects is obliterated by this system of signs, what is important is the symbolic value of objects. What matters about an object is what it tells us about the person using that object, not its use-value
Baudrillard rejected Marxism, because in Marxism the value of an object can be explained by the labour power than went into making it, but in postmodernity the value of an object lies in the symbolic meaning of that object, in what signs are projected onto it, which marketers can just make up as they go along, value is no longer to do with simply material production.
Contemporary capitalism is much more irrational and uncontrollable than Marx imagined and it operates according to its own possibly unknowable logics and is certainly beyond control by a unified ruling class.
Baudrillard rejects class based analysis of society. Baudrillard believes that the system of signs is autonomous from social class and is running away from human control into directionless change.
No underlying reality
Today there is no ‘reality’ based in use-values that can be distinguished from ‘fictional’ exchange-values.
He rejects the Marxist distinction between the truth that the ruling classes control material reality and exploit the working classes and the fiction they create through ideological control.
The media no longer produced propaganda for a ruling class, because that is based on the distinction between reality and fiction.
In postmodernity, everything is just on the surface, everything visible and on display, there is no underlying reality or truth to be discovered.
All that exist are surfaces and there is no substance beneath them.
A postmodern analysis can thus only examine this system of signs and follow how they transform without trying to find a deeper truth behind these transformations.
The reality we receive is so mediated by signs and symbols, it is pointless to unpick it for the real meaning.
In postmodernity the value of a product lies in its branding not in its use value.
Hyperreality
Baudrillard suggested that the media was the key institution in postmodern society because the media is where signs and symbols circulate, and there are a bewildering array of signs and symbols and their meanings change in an unpredictable way.
Signs and symbols in the media do not refer the objects they purportedly refer to. Instead, real objects no longer exist and in fact create the objects they supposedly merely reflect. (This is what Baudrillard refers to as simulcra: signs and symbols that create reality).
Instead of images reflecting reality, images now create reality. This is the condition of hyperreality.
Postmodern culture consists of a reality created purely by unstable and shifting symbols and signs. Especially in the media.
In postmodernity we have the ‘death of the real‘ – all we have is an unstoppable and never ending reality-creating symbols in a media dominated world, Systems of signs and symbols have taken on a life of their own.
This is a post-modern take on alienation: symbols, which were originally made by humans, have taken on a life of their own and come to dominate and control the people who made them.
This situation was never intended and is not controlled by anyone.
Disneyland
Baudrillard argued that Disneyland was an expression of hyprreality – a theme park full of simulcra which clearly had no hidden underlying meanings other than the cartoon characters and buildings therein.
Disneyland had a social function, it was presented to America as fictional in order to convince people that the ‘real’ America was ‘real’ – whereas in fact Disneyland is the real America and America is Disneyland, in fact they are one and the same, both part of hyperreality.
Disneyland does not exist to cover up the exploitative nature of American capitalism like marxists would claim, it hides nothing, because in postmodernity there is nothing to hide.
Under conditions of hyperreality information and meaning are both clear and incoherent at the same time.
There is no hidden depth to images, their information is immediately apparent, thus is the obscenity of communication.
However information is also unclear because there is so much information that it all ceases to make sense, so many channels and images create a state of meaning-chaos.
This overwhelming blizzard of information creates a sense of vertigo and ecstasy in the minds of audiences. There is so much meaning and information available that nothing makes sense anymore!
Disneyland is and example of hyperreality.
The Gulf War Never Happened
One of Baudrillard’s most famous (some might say outrageous) observations was that the Gulf War never happened, referring to the first Gulf War in the 1990s.
What he meant by this was that the reality of the war on the ground was so mediated by the time reports of it hit the media that representations of it were more like a film or a video game that the representations of the event turned it into something completely different.
The signs and symbols, or simulcra as Baudrillard calls them, claimed to represent reality but in fact they created it.
Evaluations of Baudrillard
Some of Baudrillard’s criticisms of classical Marxism are certainly valid:
His idea that value no longer derives purely from the material use-value of products is certainly valid, Symbolic value which is applied through marketing certainly plays a major role in postmodern society.
His idea that the maelstrom of signs and symbols in the media have something of a chaotic life of their own and that this system of meaning is not controlled by a distinct ruling class should maybe be taken seriously, especially in the age of YouTube creators.
His theory is also inherently critical of metanarratives, especially Marxism, which offers us the possibility of emancipation from the idea of truth.
He also recognised that audiences were not passive dupes which were controlled through the media. Rather he believed that information just flowed through them with very little effect!
Criticisms of Baudrillard
He takes the idea of simulcra and hyperreality too far. By stating that the Gulf War never happened he is ignoring the actual reality on the ground for the people who suffered through it.
It is one thing pointing out that media representations are far removed from some representations of reality (especially war) but another to say that they create that reality. To be blunt, the families of the people who died or were injured in that war may have different views to Baudrillard.
He also ignores the fact that with the cost of living crisis and climate crisis it would seem that underlying material reality really does matter. Global warming and inflation have very real impacts on people’s lives.
Signposting
This material has been written mainly for A-level sociology students studying the Theory and Methods aspect of the AQA specification. Baudrillard is usually classified as one of the main postmodern thinkers within A-level sociology although the level of depth above may be quite advanced for some students.
Baudrillard’s work on hyperreality is also relevant to the media module. He is the main guy who believes there is no reality other than media created reality in postmodern society.
Postmodernisation describes the transition of modern to postmodern culture. Modern culture was characterised by differentiation, rationalisation and commodification, but with postmodernisation these processes accelerate into hyperdifferentiation, hyper-rationalisation and hypercommodification resulting in postculture.
The concepts of postmodernisation and postculture were developed by Crook, Pakulski and Waters in 1992 in their book Postmodernisation: Change in Advanced Society (1)
Modern Culture
During modernity modern culture underwent three transformations:
Differentiation – the separating out of culture from other spheres of society and the development of specialist cultural institutions.
Rationalisation – the increasing application of science and technology to the production of cultural products
Commodification – increasingly turning cultural products into goods that could be easily bought, sold and consumed by the masses.
Differentiation
Differentiation is the separating out of different parts of society. It is where the economic, political, social and cultural spheres become more distinct and separate from each other and they come to be judged by different criteria:
Science comes to be judged by truth-claims
Morality and law come to be judged by justice and goodness
Art comes to be judged by beauty.
in the modern era, each sphere develops its own distinct specialist institutions and occupations.
In pre-modern times individuals were able to become musicians, artists and authors because of the patronage of the rich. With the onset of modernity specialist art schools developed to train individuals to become specialists in cultural production, and institutions such as theatres, art galleries and concert halls developed to make these products more widely available.
These specialist cultural institutions formed the basis for the emergence of high culture, which became distinct from folk culture which emerged from ordinary local peoples.
As modernity developed, new types of popular culture emerged also as specialist institutions separated out from other areas of social life, such as music halls and seaside holiday resorts.
Rationalisation
Rationalisation also shaped modern culture.
Music came to be more influenced by mathematical formula, leading to ‘harmonic rationalisation’ and there was also rationalisation in the mass-production of music.
Technology also contributed to the rationalisation of culture because it made it easier to copy complex forms of art and make them more accessible to wider audiences. Record players and radios for example made it possible to record complex forms of music meaning consumption of cultural products did not require people to be in the presence of a musician playing such songs.
Printing technology allowed for the mass production of artist and literary classics which enabled more people to access these works.
Crook et al argue that during modernity such mass production of high cultural products served to reinforce the status of high culture because it was mainly the classic high cultural works that were mass produced and consumed.
Commodification
The commodification of culture involves turning cultural products into commodities that can be easily bought and sold.
Arguing against mass culture theorists, Crook et al believed that the commodification of culture did not undermine high culture during modernity.
The commodification of culture served to reinforce the status of high culture because people had a choice over what to consume and most people came to regard high cultural products such as classical music and literature as superior cultural products.
High culture remains distinct in modern society.
Postmodernisation
In modern societies, culture is differentiated from other areas of life and high culture is distinct from popular culture. Postmodernisation reverses this trend.
Postmodernisation is where an intensification of differentiation, rationalisation and commodification leads to a reversing of some of the cultural trends evident in modernity and a new culture emerges which Crook et al call postculture.
Postmodernisation involves:
Differentiation being superseded by Hyperdifferentiation
Rationalisation being superseded by Hyper-rationalisation
Commodification being superseded by Hypercommodification
Hyperdifferentiation
With postmodernisation thousands of cultural products emerge and no one product is dominant. With so much variety it is increasingly difficult for anyone product to claim superiority.
For example
High culture is subsumed into popular culture, for example, classical music is increasingly used in adverts and thus high culture loses its elite status. Conversely aspects of popular culture are increasingly seen to have serious status in the eyes of those who enjoy them.
Ultimately though, at the societal level, culture in postmodern societies becomes de-differentiated: we end up with several different cultural styles each with its devotees who use their cultural products as sources of identity and see their culture as superior, but taken as a whole the idea that there is a cultural hierarchy when there is so much diversity seems increasingly ridiculous.
Hyper-rationalisation
Hyper-rationalistion involves the use of technology to privatise the experience of consumption of cultural products.
Digital technologies especially have allowed individuals to have much more freedom of choice over what music, television and films they watch, and over when they consume these products.
Such technologies have also made specific place-based venues such as concert halls and cinemas much less important as places where people consume music and film.
Following Baudrillard Crook et al argue that the hyper-rationalisation of culture erodes the distinction between authentic and inauthentic culture as media images come to dominate society. Media reproductions become more viewed than the underlying realities they represent and eventually their connection with reality is lost altogether and become what Baudrillard called Simulcra.
Hypercommodification
Hypercommodification involves all areas of social life becoming commodified.
In modern societies some areas of social life remained had escaped commodification, such as the family, community and class background. In modernity these spheres remained important sources of authentic, differentiated identity.
With postmodernisation, however, family, community and social class become increasingly subject to commodification.
Family life becomes increasingly invaded by the mass marketing of products and consumption increasingly takes place within the family-household. Part of this process is family members consuming different things. Parents and adults increasingly consume their own niche products, with children increasingly having their own T.V. sets in their bedrooms consuming their own children’s shows and adults watching adult shows in the living room.
This process drives families apart and results in the family no longer being a source of authentic collective identity as each individual family member increasingly chooses their own lifestyle.
Postmodernisation also undermines social class as a source of collective identity. With an increasing array of cultural products to choose from people from the same class increasingly choose different music, films, fashions and hobbies to indulge in which undermines traditional, modern social-class based identities.
Crook et al argue that with commodification identity is increasingly based on style which in turn is based on symbols rather than being rooted in shared experience based in the home or specific localities, thus identities are chosen and free-floating.
HyperDifferentiation, hyper-rationalisation and hypercommodification result in postculture!
Postculture
The end result of postmodernisation is postculture which is a culture characterised by diversity, choice and ultimately fragmentation, where lifestyle preferences replace a hierarchy of tastes based on social class and other social divisions.
At the time of writing, Crook et al saw postmodernisation as an ongoing process, believing that aspects of modern culture remained.
An interesting question to consider is whether we now live in a pure postmodernised postculture, 30 years on from their original theory!?!
The number of children being homeschooled has more than doubled since 2015, with most of these children being between key stages 2 and 4. While the trend towards homeschooling is part of a broader process of postmodernisation in education, we still have only 1% of children being home educated in England and Wales, meaning this isn’t a significant trend.
How many children are home educated?
There has been a rapid increase in the number of parents choosing to homeschool their children in recent years in the United Kingdom.
Between 2013 to 2018 there was a 130% increase to bring the number of homeschooled children to just over 57 000 by 2018. (1)
In 2019 another survey found that there were 60,544 registered home educated children in England. This is an increase of around 15% compared to 2018 (2)
However, with a total of 9 million children in school this is less than 1% of children who are being home-educated.
The Association of Directors of Children’s Services (ADCS) produced a more recent estimate of around 81,200 registered home educated children in England as of October 2021. This was based on survey responses from 124 out of 152 LAs and so may not be representative.
The ADCS further estimated that around 115,500 pupils in England were known to be home educated at some point during the academic year 2020/21.
Taken together the above data suggest that the number of homeschooled children in England and Wales is increasing, but we need to be cautious with recent numbers as the pandemic may have skewed recent data upwards. Also, Homeschooling maybe a temporary status for some of these children, rather than them being homeschooled for their entire school career.
The Department for Education does not routinely collect data on all the characteristics of home educated children but we do know that 0.9% of home educated children have EHC plans, meaning they have a formal statement of special educational needs.
We also have data by age in 2020 which shows us that most home educated children are between key stages 2-4.
1.3% of home educated pupils are early years
10% are key stage 1
28% are key stage 2
30% are key stage 3
27% are key stage 4
Only 3% are key stage 5.
So this suggests there is a pattern of parents pulling children out of education at key stage two and then home educated kids going back in to formal education by key stage 5.
There are no available data on gender, ethnicity or sexuality, or social class, but for later I think it’s reasonably safe to guess that we are talking about mainly middle class parents doing the home education given that they are the ones who are going to have the material and cultural capital to home educate.
Why do parents choose to home-educate?
According to a 2021 House of Commons Research briefing (2) in which parents were asked to state the top three reasons for home schooling, the main reasons parents in England and Wales opt for home schooling are:
Covid related concerns
Philosophical or lifestyle choice
Physical and mental health
No reason provided
Disatisfaction with the school
Did not get school preference
Other reasons such as bullying, avoiding exclusion, but both of these are less than 1% of choices.
So if we discount the recent Pandemic, the two stand-out reasons are philosophical or lifestyle choices and the mental and physical health of the the child.
I’m not sure if ‘religious or cultural belief’s comes under the philosophical statement above, but that’s also a commonly stated reason on most home-education web sites.
What’s interesting about this is that these are pro-active choices, rather than re-active choices – in general parents are home educating because of their deeply held values or for the health benefit of their children rather than reacting to what they perceive as sub-standard schools.
What are the challenges of home education?
While it is every parents right to educate their children as they see fit, there is a risk that children who are home educated are going to receive a lower standard of education than their school educated peers and achieve lower exam results, but of course that all depends on the quality of schools available in the local areas.
An increase in home education could mean a more fragmented society as there will be more diversity of education, but as long as parents are encouraging their children to be reasonable and responsible human beings this shouldn’t be a problem.
Home educated children may also miss out on broader socialisation into friendship groups, but if the kind of children being home educated aren’t interested in this then I guess this is a net gain.
To my mind one of the biggest problems is inequality of opportunity – home education is really only available with the middle classes who have the resources to do this – if you’re a lower income family where both partners have to work full time home-ed just wouldn’t be an option!
This recent blog post by Schools Week suggests there has been a move towards parents pulling children out of school to avoid fines for poor attendance, and a move away from religious or cultural/ ideological motivations.
This could mean more low quality home education with schools left to fill in the gaps of anything the children miss out on.
Home Education – Relevance to A-Level Sociology
This material is mainly relevant to the education aspect of the A-level sociology course.
Home-ed is part of the postmodernisation of education, but TBH it is such a minor trend it is socially insignificant at time of writing, but interesting to observe nonetheless!
Personalised learning involves putting individual students at the centre of the learning experience, listening to their voices, understanding their individual strengths and limitations and tailoring teaching and learning strategies to their individual needs. It also involves working with them to help them realise their full potential and allowing students an element of choice in what they study through flexible learning pathways, which may entail schools working in partnership with institutions outsides of the school.
A useful analogy to help understand the concept of personalised learning is to contrast it to the world of production.
Personalised learning is the equivalent of making bespoke products according to what the individual consumer wants, in contrast to ‘standard education’ which is like mass production – taking a one sized fits all approach by teaching all students the same thing in the same way (like Chalk and Talk).
Personalised Learning in education policy
Personalised Education became a formal part of education policy in 2004 under the the New Labour Government.
At that time the DfES defined personalisation of learning as “a highly structured and responsive approach to each child’s and young person’s learning, in order that all are able to progress, achieve and participate. It means strengthening the link between learning and teaching by engaging pupils – and their parents – as partners in learning (1)
While the above definition is a fairly typical example of government speak – in that it doesn’t really say anything the DfES did at least further identify five key components of personalised learning which give some more specific details of what the policy might look like in practice:
Assessment for Learning – teachers knowing the strengths and limitations of individual students.
Teaching and learning strategies that build on the individual needs of students – for example learning being appropriately paced and stretching those students who need it.
Curriculum choice – flexible learning pathways which encourage students to take responsibility of their own learning.
The whole school taking a student centred approach, taking student voices seriously.
Strong partnership beyond the school – involving local communities and institutions.
Personalised learning is a reaction against the kind of standardised education that many associated with the ‘bog standard’ comprehensives of the 1960s – in which students were required to largely sit there and listen to the teacher, taking notes, with very little in the way of creativity or interactivity occurring.
NB this kind of ‘bog standard education’ didn’t necessarily happen in every Comprehensive school, and it may be something of a stereotype, but at least this image serves the function of showing what personalised learning isn’t!
What does personalised learning look like…?
Ideally it will start with teachers finding out as much as they can about the individual and working alongside them to find a suitable learning pathway.
Another aspect is helping students figure out what their end-goals are (usually cast in terms of career aspirations) and helping them study the right subjects to set them up for their future goals.
It also involves finding out how students learn the most effectively and designing tasks for them to work on that are gong to suit their learning style, part of this will involve encouraging them to work in groups or individually, and most likely a mixture of both depending on the subjects.
In reality the capacity for schools to personalise learning is limited (see below) by available staff and the curriculum demands (schools are still required to be exam factories) so the personalisation of learning may well be reduced to:
occasional guided independent study lessons, days or maybe weeks during the year.
students working with teachers to draw up personalised learning plans for independent study which are reviewed only once or twice a term.
Some lessons maybe more ‘personalised’ with the the teacher acting as a ‘facilitator’ most of the time and students largely getting on with their own project work. You are most likely to see this in post-16 education and in creative subjects such as art and music technology.
Limitations to personalised learning
Firstly there is the fact of the national curriculum and the demand on schools to get students GCSE grades – obviously personalisation isn’t to go as far as to allowing students to simply learn guitar or pain for 6 hours a day 5 days a week, so ‘personalisation’ is limited by the requirement that students have to study English, Maths and the other core subjects.
Secondly there is the limitation of teachers’ time – the higher the ratio of students to teachers the less personalised learning is going to be. Teachers have to get through a certain amount of content and most of the time PowerPoints and group work where all students are focused on the same topic are quicker than allowing students to spend time exploring their own ‘learning pathways’.
Thirdly, schools are required to encourage students to work together, and so while a students might personally prefer to just work entirely on their own, if they are in school, this probably won’t be allowed to happen most of the time – they are going to be in a classroom working with other students.
A 2016 article from Education Week points out that the available research on personalised learning initiatives isn’t robust enough to prove that personalised learning is effective.
The Digital Counter-Revolution blog criticises the concept of personalised learning as being focused on individual academic achievement. In practice a lot of personalised learning has turned into a helping students how to maximise their grades.
in this sense all personalised learning is doing is making individual students compete more with each other, it isn’t about helping them think more critically or about being more creative or just about being better people – it is just a response to the pressures of marketisation and a competitive Higher Education and labour market.
Has Learning in the U.K. become more personalised?
Mainstream education as a whole has become more ‘postmodern’, but the tend has been very slight and mainly on the fringes of the mainstream education.
For the most part our education system remains very ‘modern’ with it being 95% focused on teaching the national curriculum and getting students through standardised exams.
I think the same thing is true for personalisation which is part of the very gradual and slight/ fringe move towards postmodernity, given that individualism, diversity and relativism are a key ideas within postmodernism.
So YES mainstream education in the U.K. has become more personalised, but personally I’d say most schools pay lip-service to this personalisation, with students having little real choice over what they study until post-GCSEs (they are not allowed to ditch English and Maths for example and have to resit it post-16 if they fail it at GCSE level).
Signposting
This material is mainly relevant to the education topic within A-level Sociology.
Polyamory (having more than one long-term intimate sexual partner) is increasing in popularity in the UK, and it has many advantages compared to committing to monogamy, at least according to Ana Kirova, CEO of the FEELD app – which helps people interested in Polyamory find others with similar interests.
Polyamory literally means ‘many loves’ and engaging in a Polyamorous relationship is certainly a challenge to the standard monogamous relationship with the idea of committing to one sexual parter at a time.
Ana Kirova who is herself polyamorous defines polyamory as an ‘Ethical non-monogamous’ relationship in which more than two people make up a ‘polycule’ (excuse spelling) – everyone within the polycule consents to everything everyone else is doing.
She describes polyamory as an open and explorative relationship which has at its core the concept of ‘Dynamic Consent’ – Communication is essential in this ‘contemporary’ form of polyamory – there has to be regular ‘checking in’ sessions to make sure that everyone is oK.
As an example of a Polyamorous relationship you might have two couples, and each couple is for most of the month a regular couple (even with children in some cases) but maybe once or twice a month they just swap partners.
Of course there are many other possible variations – the more people involved the more complex obtaining dynamic consent is going to be.
Kirova describes regular monogamous relationships as ‘static’ whereas Polyamorous relationships allow people to explore their sexualities and identities more fully than being committed to just one person.
Jealousy is an obvious problem that can arise with this type of relationship, but Ana says with her and her partner this was an early stage problem which they worked through and after that it was all fine, it’s just a matter of working through it!
Who is into Polyamory and why is it growing?
Anecdotally younger people in their 20s are most likely to adopt this type of relationship.
Ana Kirova suggests this is because younger people grew up with the internent which exposed them to a wider range of identities and possibilities.
The empowerment of women and LGBTQ plus people has also had a massive impact, as the later especially have had to redefine what a ‘good relationship’ looks for them.
35% on the Feeld App identify as different to heterosexual and most are in the 20 to 30 age bracket.
Evaluating Polyamory
The show had three ‘experts’ in to discuss Polyamory…..
Pam Spur – psychologist and relationship expert
Anita Cassidy – embraced a polyamorous life style, life coach 38
Andrew G Marshall- marriage therapist.
Together they made the following evaluative points:
Monogamy seems to work best for most people – there are many supposed advantageous of Monogamy which stand in contrast: Monogamy is…
More stable
More Secure
Easy to legislate
Religiously sanctioned.
HOWEVER, there is no suggestion from Ana that Monogamy isn’t an option, one of the panelists, herself polyamorous, was going through a phase of being ‘consciously monogamous’ while her parter had a ‘play partner’ he met up with once a month.
They seemed to agree that ‘Toxic relationship normality’ is a problem – having a concept of ‘normal’ can be harmful. IF we all think we have no choice but to stick with a monogamous relationship this might just lead to more abuse and affairs within that relationship. This inks to the dark side of family life uncovered by Feminists.
Furthermore, children may be better off with their parents NOT sticking to a dead monogomous relationship…
Kirova for example says her parents had fallen out of love after 20 or 30 years, and they were unhappy because they didn’t know how to live a life apart. She says she had stability but with parents who were not their best selves, and possibly having the option of polyamory may be better all round.
So what’s she’s saying is that it’s maybe even better for children to learn relatively early on that it’s OK to leave a monogamous relationship behind if it’s not working and find someone else, or more than one ‘someone’ else!
Loving more than one person – jealousy…. many people just can’t get one over it, it can be pathological. HOWEVER, maybe it’s better to learn from it than run away from jealousy, and with Polyandry that’s something you’re going to have to do.
NB there is maybe a problem that you will get a lot of bored people using the app – Polyamory isn’t an easy way out of a failing relationship!
Relevance to A-Level Sociology
The programme was clearly pro-Polyamory and seems most in line with the concept of the negotiated Family associated with Late Modernism.
It’s doubtful whether the New Right would agree with the concept of Polyamory, but they’d maybe have a difficult time arguing against it when monogamy is seen as an option and there’s little evidence of people being harmed by Polyamory!
Recent independent research conducted during Lockdown has found that 56% of people report that they are part of a ‘subgroup’.
The research was conducted by ‘The Nursery‘ and consisted of a phone survey of 1800 adults. The most popular subculture types reported were:
Gaming
Religious groups (not mainstream religions)
Hippy
Spirituality
Political movements
Restrictive diets (e.g. paleo, vegan etc)
Punk
Bikers
Goth
Role-play gaming
The most common motive for joining a subculture was a ‘sense of belonging’, with 75% of respondents saying membership of their subculture was an important aspect of their identity.
Gaming is the largest genre of subculture, with 20% of respondents saying they had started gaming during lockdown, and new religious subcultures such as Wicca (3% of people) are also increasingly popular.
Can we really really call something so mainstream a ‘subculture’?
Relevance to A-level Sociology
This is an important update for subcultural theories of ‘deviance‘. IF we accept the definition of the above types of subculture (such as gaming cultures) as subcultures, then being part of a subculture is now normal, as 56% say they are part of one, and thus being part of a subculture is no longer deviant.
This seems to offer support for postmodern theories of subculture and society – Britain’s social make-up now consists of people fragmented into groups who choose to subscribe to a subculture/ group that gives their life meaning (almost 50% of respondents cited creativity as an important aspect of their subcultural membership)
This research also shows how far we’ve come from the early days of subcultural theory in the 1950s – such as Albert Cohen’s Status Frustration theory, and how irrelevant that is to understanding our diverse, consumer oriented postmodern subcultures.
It’s unlikely that 56% of the population join subcultures due to status frustration!
Then again, that particular theory wasn’t trying to explain subcultures such as those in the above research, and it may still be relevant in explaining why people join more deviant subcultures?
