Factors Influencing Youth Culture: Impact of class

Understanding Class Impact on Youth Culture

Social class greatly impacts youth culture in a variety of ways, from shaping a youth’s lifestyle and values, to dictating their access to resources, influencing their educational trajectory, and more.

Class Identity

A young person’s class identity can significantly influence their self-perception and can shape the values, beliefs, and norms they adopt.
Those from working-class background might develop a sense of identity that emphasises resilience and solidarity, which might shape certain elements of youth culture.
In contrast, middle and upper class youth may draw their identity from education, professionalism, and achievement, similarly influencing their perspective on youth culture.

Access to Resources

Class can dictate the availability and nature of resources that young people can access, which in turn, can shape their participation in or exclusion from certain youth cultures.
Youths from higher social classes, for instance, may have access to digital equipment or particular educational resources, which may mediate their engagement with certain youth cultures.
Contrarily, those from lower classes could face limited access to these resources, leading to different ways of engaging with youth culture, or contributing to the formation of alternative cultures.

Educational Pathways

Education often represents a vital socialising influence on youth culture, and social class can significantly impact a young person’s educational path.
Youths from lower social classes may face challenges in education due to factors like limited resources and inadequate support, which can lead to a divergence of their youth culture from that of their middle or upper-class counterparts.
On the other hand, middle and upper-class youths, with better access to educational resources and opportunities, may engage with youth culture in ways that align with their educational contexts.

Lifestyle and Consumption

Different social classes can significantly influence youth lifestyles, and hence, youth culture.
The consumption habits, lifestyle choices, and free time activities of young people may vastly differ based on their class, which could give rise to distinctive class-based youth cultures.
For example, upper-class youths might engage more in high-brow cultural activities (e.g., classical music concerts), while working-class youth might align more with activities seen as “popular” or “grassroots” (e.g., football).

Influence of Family Structure

The family structure and class background can significantly influence a young person’s outlook and behaviour.
For instance, working-class backgrounds often value collective responsibility and community-oriented values, which can reflect in the youth culture of these young people.
In contrast, middle-class families often stress individualism and personal achievement, values which can shape the youth cultures pursued by these individuals.