This interactive activity is designed for Cambridge OCR A Level Sociology: Youth subcultures. It fits the OCR specification area that asks students to study how youth subcultures relate to social class, gender, ethnicity and hybridity, and it also helps them connect this to later parts of the topic on deviant subcultures and media representations. The OCR delivery guide explicitly says learners should use illustrative examples of subcultures to explore how and why youth culture and subcultures are formed, and that they should assess changes to subcultures based on social class, gender, ethnicity and hybridity.
This comparison arena lets students place two subcultures side by side and compare them across the key strands OCR wants them to think about, including social class base, gender visibility, ethnic identity, media portrayal, resistance, commercialisation and deviance. It also builds in OCR-friendly research references. The OCR delivery guide highlights the importance of the CCCS tradition and examples such as skinheads, punks and Rastafarians, while OCR examiner reports note that strong answers often draw on studies such as Cohen, Nightingale, Bourgois and Sewell when discussing youth subcultures, ethnicity and hybridity.
Subculture Comparison Arena
Choose two subcultures and compare them side by side across OCR’s key lines of analysis.
Choose a subculture
Choose a subculture to see its profile.
Choose a subculture
Choose a subculture to see its profile.
Comparison table
Choose two subcultures and click Compare subcultures.
Comparative judgement
Your comparison judgement will appear here.
OCR-friendly research links
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