Age and identity: sociology of culture and identity

Sociology: Culture & Identity

1. Age and identity

   • The social construction of age
     • There is a social dimension to ageing, and there are often different norms, values and expectations of behaviour associated with different ages. Age is a social construction, in the sense that the identity and status allocated to people of different biological ages is created by society and social attitudes, and not simply moulded by biology.
     • There can be wide biological differences between people of the same age, which may impact oh how others see and define them, and attitudes to age vary between cultures. In some societies old people have high status as the 'elders' of a community, while in modern Britain older people generally tend to lack status and authority, though this can vary between ethnic groups. In the Asian community, for example, elderly people are still often held in high esteem.
     • Social attitudes to people of different ages can change over time.
       • Study: Philippe Ariès (1973) showed that in medieval times childhood did not exist as a separate status. Children often moved straight from infancy, when they required constant care, to working roles in the community. Children were seen as 'little adults'. They did not lead separate lives, and dressed like, and mixed with, adults. 'Childhood' was certainly not the specially protectedand privileged time of life we associate with children today, with their legal protection, extended education and freedom from work.
   • Age groups and identity
     • The social construction of age means that we tend to think of people in terms of age groups in comtemporary British culture, such as 'infancy', 'childhood','teenager', 'youth', 'young' and 'mature' adulthood, 'middle age' or 'old age'. The age group to which we belong can have important consequences for identity and status, particularly for the youth and the old. For example, our age influences whether we can get employment, or keep employment , go into pubs, clubs and films, and whether it is legally possible to marry or socially acceptable to have sex.
     • There are broad cultural stereotypes and assumptions about the lifestyles of some of these age groups, and different norms and expectations of behaviour assoscited with them, which can help to mould the identities of those in these groups. For example, behaviour considered appropriate for a child might be regareded as very odd in a middle-aged man. These age groups are therefore formed of social identity and may be a source of individual identity as well. How old you are can have a direct impact on your own sense of identity, how you behave and how others see you. For example, being a 'teenager' involves a frequwntly difficult period of transtion between childhood and adulthood, and the teenage identity may be seen as confusing, trouble-some and angst-ridden for the individual, and 'trouble' for others.
     • Study: Bradley (1995) sees age as an important aspect of identity for individuals. She recognises that it tends to be short-lived and changing identity as people spend only a short period of time in a particular age group.
   • Older people and identity
     • Key term: Ageism is stereotyping and discrimination against individuals or groups on the grounds of their age.
     • With greater life expectancy, retired people may be in the 'older' age group for perhaps longer than in any other age group. Retirement brings with it a loss of identity that arises from work, as well as the associated income. Older people today are healthier and more affluent than they have ever been, but there is still widespread poverty among the old, particularly among working-class widowed women and/or those without occupational pension schemes. Even relatively well-off pensioners will face a substantial drop in income compared to those who are working, and this makes it harder for some older people, especially the poor, to establish alternative identites through leisure and consumption patterns.
     • In 2010 nearly one in four people in the UK were aged 60 or over. The 'grey pound' (older peopl'e spending) is very important to businesses and, increasingly, new businesses are opening up that market older people and are dedicated to their needs, such as SAGA.
     • Despite being a significant proportion of the population and a major market for business, older people often suffer prejudice and discrimination, with negative stereotyped assumptions that they are less intelligent, forgetful, 'grupmy' and 'moaning', in poor health, incapable and dependent on others and so on - simply because they are old. Older people, particularly, are liekly to encounter ageism.
       • Ageism can have detrimental effects on older peole, and they may face being called derogatory names and having negative media images. Old age might be regarded as an example of a stigmatized identity, which prevents older people from established identities other than that of simply eing the 'old person' found in negative stereotypes.
   • Youth and identity: Youth culture
     • Sociological approaches to youth subculture
       • Key term: Status frustration is a sense of frustration arising in individuals or groups because they are denied status in society.
       • Marxist approaches
         • Key terms: Social cohension refers to the bonds or 'glue' that brings people together and intergrate them into a united society.
         • Marxists try to explain the diversity of subcultures and their differences in style in terms of their social class positions.
         • Study: Hall and Jefferson (1976) saw particular youth styles, such as skin heads, Punks, Teddy Boys and Mods, as subcultures of resistance to the dominant social class and dominant culture and ideology of society.
         • Study: Hebdige (1976) for example, saw the Mod style as a reaction by lower middle-class youth to the tedium of their life and work.
         • Study: Cohen (1972) saw working - class youth subcultures arising as a means of reetablishing a sense of community and social cohesion lost in their parents' culture due to the break-up of traditional working-class communities, through rehousing and high unemployment.
       • Feminist approaches
       • Postmodernist approaches
         • Key term: A metanarrative is a broad, all embracing 'big theory' or explanation for how societies operate.
         • Key term: Neo-tribalism refers to groups with very loose fluid boundaries and an ever-changing floating membership, that only exist when they come together for particular lifestyle rituals. They are not the cohesive and fixed social groups, with clear identities, styles and lines of division between them, associated with the concpet of a subculture.
       • Functionalist approaches
         • Study: Eisenstadt (1956) and Parsons and Bales (1956) suggest youth subcultures emerge as a way of dealing with the status frustration that arises during the extended period of transition from childhood to independent adulthood in contemporary Western societies.
         • Economic dependency on paretns and extended periods in education means that many young peopl find difficulty in establishing a clear independent adult status, and this leads to status frustration. Youth culture enables young people to assert and practise their growing independence and carve out an identity for themselves separate from that established by family,school or work.
         • Functionalists see the formation of youth subcultures as a fairly normal transitional stage as young people more towards the establishment of an independent adult identity. Youth culture is seen as short-lived passing phase, expressed mainly through pleasure-seeking in leisure activities in the company of the peer group. Once the period of status frustration is over and a clear adult identity established, interest in youth culture withers.
         • The functionalist view has been criticized for not explaning the wide variety of youth subcultures and youth styles, the class, gender and ethnic differences between them and their occasional dysfunctional aspects, such as their links to racism, sexism, crime, delinquency and anti-scoial behaviour.
     • Key term: Bricolage refers to the use of redily available ordinary objects to create something new. For example, in study of youth culture, it refers to the use of everyday items like bin liners, safety pins as ear and nose rings, toilet chains, and habits like spitting to creare a new distinctive punk identity.
     • The idenity of young people has often found expression through youth subcultures. The term 'youth subculture' refers to groups of young people who share some cultural features which are in some ways different from that of the dominant, mainstream culture of society.
     • Study: Hebdige (1979) pointed out youth subcultures often involve bricolage, whereby otherwise ordinary, everyday readily available objects are combined to create bew styles and identities.
       • Symbolds draw attention to those wearing them, and may turn youth subcultures into spectacles to be looked at, as well as sometines expressing active hostility and contempt for the values, dress and fashion codes of the dominant culture.