Youth subcultures: Theory, history and the Australian experience
Edited by Rob White
Reprinted in September 2006 by the Australian Clearinghouse for Youth Studies
ISBN 1 875236 58 9 (pbk) 152pp.
Cost: $30.80 including GST.
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Originally published in 1993 by the National Clearinghouse for Youth Studies
and reprinted in 1998, 2000 and 2002; ISBN 1 875236 21 X (pbk) 164pp.
This reprint: 2006, ISBN 1 875236 58 9 (pbk), 152pp.
Youth subcultures: Theory, history and the Australian experience is an essential guide to the lifestyle and cultural concerns of young people in Australia today.
Edited by Prof. Rob White (University of Tasmania), this is the classic text on Australian youth subcultures.
The need for a fourth reprinting amply demonstrates that youth subcultures is an area of perennial interest, debate and contention in Australian youth studies, and that the study of youth cultures and subcultures continues to be highly relevant to understanding where each generation of young people is coming from and, perhaps, where it is going.
In his preface, Rob White writes: 'This book stands as testimony to the persistence of interest in youth subcultures, and of the complexities, ambiguities and continuities of street culture and youth group formation over time. Youth subcultures, in varying forms, do exist in Australia today.
They share many of the attributes of similar phenomena in the past. Yet they incorporate in dynamic fashion the latest developments in technology, the influence of globalised communications, ever fluid ideas about identity and the self, and widely varying commitment, consciousness and purposes.'
The book provides an overview and survey of Australian theory, research, history and experience in relation to youth subcultures and youth cultural activity. It includes case studies and historical sketches of a wide range of experiences of young people throughout Australia, from bodgies and widgies in the 1950s through to the goths and bogans of the 1990s. It also examines the factors underlying the formation of diverse youth subcultures, and reviews the theoretical debates on the interpretation of the cultural experiences of young people.
Youth Subcultures will be of interest to teachers, academics, youth and community workers, tertiary students, parents and young people themselves.