Age Identity

Age is a significant but often overlooked dimension of identity. Sociologists argue that the meanings attached to different ages — childhood, youth, middle age, old age — are not simply biological facts but are socially constructed, varying across cultures and historical periods. This lesson examines how age identities are formed, experienced, and contested, with particular attention to youth subcultures, generational identity, ageism, and consumer identity.

Key Definition: Age identity refers to an individual's sense of self in relation to their age, and the cultural meanings, expectations, roles, and stereotypes associated with different age groups in a given society.

---

The Social Construction of Age

Age as Social Construction

While ageing is a biological process, the social significance attached to different ages is culturally and historically variable:

• Childhood: In medieval Europe, children were treated as "miniature adults" — they worked alongside adults, dressed in adult clothing, and were not seen as a distinct category requiring special protection. The modern concept of childhood as a separate, protected stage of life is a relatively recent invention. Philippe Ariès (1962), in Centuries of Childhood, argued that childhood as we know it is a social construction that emerged in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.

• Youth/adolescence: The concept of "youth" or "adolescence" as a distinct life stage is largely a twentieth-century invention, linked to the expansion of education, the creation of a youth consumer market, and the delay of adult responsibilities (marriage, employment).

• Old age: The meanings attached to old age vary dramatically across cultures. In some societies, elders are revered as sources of wisdom and authority; in contemporary Western societies, old age is often associated with decline, dependency, and social irrelevance.

Evaluation (AO3):

• Ariès's work has been criticised for overstating the absence of a concept of childhood in medieval Europe — some historians argue that children were always recognised as different from adults, even if the specific cultural forms of childhood differed.
• However, the fundamental point that the social significance of age is culturally variable is well-established.

---

Youth Subcultures

The CCCS Approach

The Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (CCCS) at the University of Birmingham, active in the 1970s and 1980s, produced the most influential body of work on youth subcultures. Key figures included Stuart Hall, Phil Cohen, Dick Hebdige, and Paul Willis.

The CCCS argued that post-war youth subcultures — teddy boys, mods, rockers, skinheads, punks, rastas — were symbolic forms of class resistance. Working-class youth used distinctive styles (clothing, music, language, ritual) to express opposition to, or negotiate with, their class position.

Subculture	Period	Key Features	CCCS Interpretation
Teddy boys	1950s	Edwardian suits, rock and roll	Reclaiming upper-class style to assert working-class pride
Mods	1960s	Sharp suits, scooters, soul music	Aspiration, mobility, and upward mobility in consumer culture
Skinheads	Late 1960s	Boots, braces, cropped hair	Symbolic attempt to recover disappearing working-class community
Punks	1970s	Safety pins, torn clothing, mohawks	Symbolic refusal of consumer society; DIY ethos
Rastas	1970s-80s	Dreadlocks, reggae, Afrocentric identity	Resistance to racism and colonial identity

Hebdige (1979), in Subculture: The Meaning of Style, argued that subcultural style is a form of "semiotic guerrilla warfare" — using signs, symbols, and objects in unexpected ways to challenge dominant meanings.

Evaluation (AO3):

• The CCCS approach is rich and insightful, but has been criticised for:
  • Over-interpreting style as political resistance — many young people may adopt subcultural styles for fun, identity, or belonging rather than as a political statement.
  • Ignoring girls: McRobbie and Garber argued that the CCCS focused almost exclusively on male subcultures.
  • Romanticising working-class youth culture while ignoring its problematic aspects (racism in skinhead culture, sexism in punk).

Post-Subcultural Theory — Thornton (1995)

Sarah Thornton (1995), in Club Cultures, challenged the CCCS approach and argued that contemporary youth cultures are better understood through the concept of "subcultural capital" (adapted from Bourdieu's cultural capital). Subcultural capital refers to the knowledge, style, and connections that confer status within a particular youth scene.