Subculture

The SAGE International Encyclopedia of Music and Culture

Edited by Janet Sturman

SAGE Publications: pp. 2088–92 (2019)

Abstract

Subculture is a theoretical perspective used to describe and analyze social groups that constitute some subset of a larger dominant, mainstream, or mass culture. Subculture theory has been most commonly applied to oppositional social groups and youth cultures by scholars in disciplines as diverse as anthropology, communications, cultural studies, ethnomusicology, media studies, popular music studies, sociology, and others. Although subculture theory’s roots are found in early-twentieth-century sociology, it became strongly associated with scholars affiliated with the Birmingham Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies (the BCCCS, or Birmingham School) in the 1970s. Later scholars have both updated subculture theory to address particular weaknesses in its Birmingham School application and promoted alternative perspectives to describe social subgroups.