British Culture & Society PowerPoint Presentation

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Chapter 2 Family & Personal Relationships (1)

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Focal questions 1. What are the traditional expectations of marriage in Britain? (Pp19, 22, 23) 2. How do you visualise the typical family in modern Britain? (Pp 19) 3. What changes in the family and marriage have occured since the Second World War? Which are the most significant? How do you explain them? (Pp 19, 20, 24, 25, 26) 4. What do you understand of the term "youth culture"? Can you give some specific examples of youth subcultures or cults? Do all youth subcultures have certain common features? (P21)

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A 1 The Family Diverse families Nuclear family Lone-parent family Cohabiting couple Common-law/de facto marriage Civil partnership

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A 1 Family cont. Marriage: half—fail; rate—lowest since records in 1840 Divorce: rate—highest in Europe; 1+child/4 before age 16—divorce of their parents Lone parenting: increased three-fold in the last 20 years, 1/10 families 4/10 people: born outside marriage 1/10: cohabiting

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http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1865

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Family size Complete family size of 2 kids: 1/3 women Childlessness: 1/5 women Causes: Falling infant death rates fell The expense of having children Career vs. children

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Darren Hayes Savage Garden

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Darren on the civil partnership ceremony "I can honestly say it was the happiest day of my life," writes Hayes of the civil partnership ceremony, which took place in London. "I feel lucky to live in an era where my relationship can be considered legally legitimate, and I commend the U.K. government for embracing this very basic civil liberty."

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Darren on the civil partnership ceremony Britain legalized civil partnerships in December 2005. Civil Partnership Act 2004 Same-sex couples http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Partnership_Act_2004

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London the most popular region within the UK in which to register a partnership in 2007 The London Borough of Westminster Brighton and Hove Unitary Authority http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1685

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Living in Britain General Household Survey 2002

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http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1685

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Living in Britain General Household Survey 2002

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A 2 Youth Youth: an age group? A social organization The 1950s: about ten years after the end of WWII A rise in the birth rate Music, films, fashion ‘Youth subculture’—teenagers

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A 5 50 Years of Change The 1950s – a time of great changes in fields of economy, culture, politics. The 1960s – a decade of rebellious young generation of great expectation

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A 5 50 Years of Change The 1970s – a decade of strikes and recession The 1980s – a decade of Thatcherism The 1990s – a decade of great expectation

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A2 Youth (1970s) Youth Subcultures Subculture : a ‘cultural group within a larger culture often having beliefs or interests at variance with those of the larger culture (COD) A distinct individual style – certain ways of dressing, speaking, listening to music and gathering in similar places The way of life Inevitable products of affluent society To leave: usu. at the point of marriage

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A2 Youth—Teddy Boys Rock 'n' Roll: black origin, white musicians like Elvis Teenage cults Music of the Teddy Boys or 'Teds' Slicked-back ‘quiffs’ or ‘DA’ (ducktail) haircuts Narrow ‘drainpipe’ trousers ‘Drape’ jackets, fancy shirts ‘Bootlace’ ties

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A 2 Youth Teddy Boys: Characteristics Group-mindedness – a reaffirmation of traditional working class values and the strong sense of territory Extreme touchiness (over-sensitivity) to insults Conditions for its formation – extensive welfare provision (social security, health, housing), European economic boom with Marshall plan, abolishing of draft, introduction of hire purchase Drastical and fundamental alteration of the concept of the adolescent

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A 2 Youth cont. Teddy Boys in the 1950s

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A 2 Youth cont. The Beatniks The “beat” movement in the US in the 1950s Rejection of traditional middle-class American values, customs The “Beat generation”—beatitude Sputnik I Their visual symbols - jazz, poetry, marijuanna, the Beatles Counter-cultural, anti-materialistic, bettering the inner self

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A 2 Youth Beatniks: Characteristics Extremely pessimistic about future & possibilities of progress Aspired for freedom and the anguish of being alone, undecided and separate No popularity in Britain until mid-1960s; the Hippies The Simpsons episode

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A 2 Youth The Beatniks

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A 2 Youth The Beatles

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A 2 Youth The Rolling Stones

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A 2 Youth (The 1960s) Mods and Rockers A new mood of optimism and change Rockers: rock 'n' roll & big motorbikes; 'dressed down' (in leather jackets and denim); working class, masculinity driven Mods: American rhythm and blues music & scooters; 'dressed up' (in sharp suits and ties—Italian style); working-class, non-traditional clerical or service jobs

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A 2 Youth Rockers and their motor-bikes

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A 2 Youth Mods and their scootors

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A2 Youth The Hippies ‘Hippie’: bohemian, student and radical subcultures Being critical of growing dominance of technology & bureaucracy of capitalist societies Distrust of establishment Criticism of inequality and affluence of society Search of social change through peaceful means Contradictions: Anti-materialistic, yet lived to share the fruits of affluence Pro-egalitarian, but reactionary

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A 2 Youth Skinheads cont. The unskilled working-class community Working-class activities: pubs, football and streets, associated with football hooliganism The end of the 1960s, relative worsening of situation of working-class Dress – big industrial boots & jeans rolled up high to reveal them Appearance –hair cut to the skull Emphasis on collectivity, physical toughness, and local rivalry; targets for the aggression—hippies

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A2 Youth cont. Hippies (left) Skin heads (right)

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A2 Youth (1970s) Punks The 1970s: Punk, Heavy Metal Punk: youth culture in the extreme Spiked hair, ripped and outlandishly customized clothing Obscene language (much-publicized) To both cut themselves off from society and to shock it into action Heavy Metal music: grew in the 1970s; bikers

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A 2 Youth cont. The punks

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Taxi Driver Travis Bickle Jodie Foster John Hinckley President Reagan

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A2 Youth (1970s) Rastafarianism--Rastas Rastafarianism: a philosophy and a religion originating in Jamaica; black Britain; the reggae music of Bob Marley.

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The Influence of Reggae on Punk Search for authenticity The romanticization of petty criminality “white translation of black ethnicity” (Hebdige p.64)—Elvis Presley: “white nigger” Reggae music Non-mainstream Working class credentials Political awareness Music of the “outsider”

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A 2 Youth (1980s) The Ravers the New Romantics— wearing flamboyant clothes often like those of the 18C 'dandies' Hip Hop, the black communities of the USA, rap music, graffiti art, sportswear-based dress and other cultural elements Rave, grew out of the 'acid house' cult of 1988. American 'house' music, baggy colourful clothing drugs like LSD and Ecstacy. All night dancing events called raves in remote out-of-the-way places

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Graffiti—art or vandalism?

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A 2 Youth (the 1990s) Ragga & Jungle Predominantly black, ragga music, a dance-oriented form of reggae commonly with the lyric spoken or 'chatted' Young Asians born in Britain: 'bhangramuffin‘, the Asian music, Bhangra Jungle, elements of house music and rave culture; the most innovative, original youth culture of the mid-1990s

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Oasis

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60后 70后 80后 90后 1、关于工作  60后：他们要么狂工作，要么不工作,狂工作的是为了尽早不工作。 70后：工作狂基本上都是70后的。 80后：拒绝加班！ 90后 ：拒绝上班！

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60后 70后 80后 90后 2、 关于穿着  60后：买衣服要么去购物广场，要么去批发市场。  70后：喜欢穿中等价位牌子的衣服,价钱决定购买.  80后： 喜欢潮流品牌,搭配出FEEL的都不惜购买.  90后：个性服饰,穿衣基本靠冲动.

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60后 70后 80后 90后 3、关于K歌  60后：一般只喝不K，即使K，也是喝了酒之后，大体是“一无所有”、“北方的狼”  70后：唱k的时候只会乱吼——例如2002年的第一场雪，然后就拼命拉着你喝酒，不让你唱。  80后：Mic霸。  90后 ：不止会唱，还会跳！

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A 2 Youth Millennial Tension Young males – postmodernity destroyed traditional social role, respect, authority Erosion of ‘masculine’ forms of work, sources of self-respect

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A 2 Youth Suicide Solution Massive increases in suicide amongst young males in UK (5X higher than young women)

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A 2 Youth Conclusion Commercial consumption Blurring of upper and lower boundaries More escapist than oppositional Absorption into mainstream Reinforced expectation that youth will generate consumer ideals Childhood—modernist optimism, youth—postmodernist freedom and possibility The real problems

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Youth Samuel Erman 1. Youth is not a time of life, it is a state of mind, it is not a matter of rosy cheeks, red lips and supple knees, it is a matter of the will, a quality of the imagination, a vigor of the emotions, it is the freshness of the deep spring of life.

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Youth cont 2. Youth means a temperamental predominance of courage over timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. This often exists in a man of 60 more than a boy of 20. Nobody grows merely by a number of years; we grow old by deserting our ideas. 3. Years may wrinkle the skin, but to give up enthusiasm wrinkles the soul. Worry, fear, self-distrust bows the heart and turns the spirit back to dust.

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Youth cont 4. Whether 60 or 16, there is in every human being’s heart the lure of wonders, the unfailing childlike appetite of what’s next and the joy of the game of living. In the center of your heart and my heart there is a wireless station: so long as it receives messages of beauty, hope, cheer, courage and power from man and from the Infinite, so long as you are young.

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Youth cont 5. When the aerials are down, and your spirits are covered with snows of cynicism and the ice of pessimism, then you’ve grown old even at 20, but as long as your aerials are up to catch waves of optimism, there’s hope you may die young at 80.

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A 4 Marriage & Divorce Marriage and cohabitation In 2000 : 54% of men & 52% of women aged 16 and over: married 10% of men & nine% of women: cohabiting 27% of men & 18% of women: single 3% of men & 12% of women: widowed 6% of men & 9% of women: divorced or separated

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A 4 Marriage & Divorce http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=170

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Sociological Explanations of the Increase in Divorce The value of marriage Conflict between spouses The ease of divorce Women, paid employment and marital conflict Income and class Age Marital status of parents Background and role expectations Occupation

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http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1866

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http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1925

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All the lonely people 40 years ago,the Beatles asked the world a simple question,they wanted to know where all the lonely people come from. Grey’s Anatomy All the lonely people, where do they all come from? All the lonely people, where do they all belong? Eleanor Rigby, Beatles

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A 1 The Family cont. One-parent families & their dependent children

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http://www.statistics.gov.uk/cci/nugget.asp?id=1748

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A 1 Family cont. The traditional family: in decline? The Soul of Britain survey: 80% of Britons: marriage is not out-dated  76% of Britons: marriages to last for life  46% of Britons: lone parenting as a lifestyle choice  Columnist Melanie Phillips: the traditional nuclear family—at the root of democracy (secure, stable, inner-directed and self-confident, a sense of duty and responsibility)

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A 1 Family cont. Traditional families are better for children Bob Rowthorne (professor of economics at Cambridge University): step families are very dangerous places for children to be—Higher rate of child murder Lone-parent families or cohabiting families  — not stable Lone-parent families: poverty and social problems related to poverty

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A 1 The Family Home is Where the Heart is Stable marriage – a happy home life in Millennium Britain (a new Alliance & Leicester public opinion poll by MORI) 1,938 people: what would be the most important ingredient to family life in 25 years time Stable marriage and less divorce: more than one in four people (26 per cent) Consistent across all age groups

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Towards a More Civilised Society European economies: joint taxation In Britain: family commitments—largely irrelevant to tax assessment Call for approbation and support from the state The married family & the nurture of children -- Center for Policy Studies