O conceito de subcultura em sociologia

THE CENTER HOLDS:

FROM SUBCULTURES TO SOCIAL WORLDS*

The concept of subculture has long been used routinely in sociology despite

many criticisms about the contradictory manner in which it has been defined

and applied. One particular problem concerns the untenable distinction often

made by sociologists between subcultures and countercultures; another is the

implicit characterization of subcultures as either deviant, marginalized groups

or heroic resisters against the hegemonic culture of global capitalism. In this

paper, we attempt to demonstrate a method of teaching the concept of subculture

to undergraduate sociology students that would remedy these two

difficulties. We do this by offering working definitions of several terms, including

common culture, subculture, idioculture, and social world. We conclude

the paper by developing a classroom exercise to help students grasp the

main differences between these various terms.

JAMES J. DOWD

University of Georgia

"Things fall apart; the center cannot hold."

(Yeats 1920)

WE LIVE TODAY in a world where the logic

of economic development and the irresistible

force of capitalist expansion affect every

society and every human being, influencing

political regimes and cultural systems

throughout the world. For example, some

nation states have formed supra-national

pacts to coordinate their economies, while

in other states economic and political instabilities

have resulted in a form of cultural

implosion along older, premodern fissures

of religion and ethnicity. Accompanying the

flows of capital and culture throughout the

world have been movements of people. Migrants,

guest workers, refugees, tourists,

aid workers, peacekeepers, and others have

contributed to what has become an increasingly

multicultural and multi-ethnic world.

LAURA A. DOWD

University of Georgia

These developments bear enormous relevance

for sociological teaching and research,

as almost every specialty within our

discipline has had to recast or enlarge its

focus of study in recognition of these movements

of capital, culture, and people.

In teaching an introductory course in sociology,

for example, we not only encounter

these issues directly by incorporating new

lectures on globalization within our courses

but also indirectly, as when we expand our

focus to include both inequality within societies

and the persistent and growing inequality

between societies and global regions.

Depending upon one's emphasis in

the introductory course, discussion of the

effects of globalization will almost certainly

weigh more heavily in certain sections of

the course than in others. In our own experience,

it has been in our lectures on culture

that we began to recognize the necessity

of recasting our approach to some of

the most central ideas within that rubric.

Specifically, for us the concept of subculture

and the related idea of counterculture

became increasingly difficult to communicate

to our students clearly and confidently.

After much reading, thought, and discussion,

we better understand what caused the

"*Pleasea ddress all correspondenceto the

authorsa t the Departmenotf Sociology,U niversity

of Georgia,A thens,G A 30602-1611;

e-mail: [e-mail] and

[e-mail].

Editor's note: The reviewers were, in

alphabeticaol rder, GiannaD urso-FinleyJ, ana

L. Jasinskia, ndD avidL ong.

TeachingS ociology,V ol. 31, 2003 (January:20-37) 20

TEACHING SUBCULTURES 21

difficulty we experienced and have revamped

our approach to these issues in a

way that we feel resolves the problem. In

this paper, we will present our approach to

teaching the concept of subculture. We hope

that in so doing we will contribute to the

scholarship of teaching and learning by

demonstrating how the act of teaching,

which is always informed by good research,