examined the immediate and the wider context to determine how two different youth subcultures reacted to the changes occurring in their community. He suggested that the Mod reaction was to the new ideology of affluence. They wanted to show that they had money and knew how to spend it. In contrast, skinheads looked back to the more traditional working class community. Each generation tries to find employment or adapts to unemployment. But the 1920s had very different economic circumstances to later decades. Cohen argued that youth develop a cultural style as a means of coping with their particular circumstances and of resisting the dominant values of society. This casts working class youth as the standard bearers of class struggle. There is little in real terms that youth can do to change society, but resistance offers subjective satisfaction which can be shown through style: the clothes, haircuts, music and language of the different youth cultures. Cohen argued that these styles are not meaningless, but are deeply layered in meaning. This is an application of Marxist Subcultural Theory which synthesised the structuralism of Marxism with the Labelling Theory. The approach matched that of the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at Birmingham University (see Crow: 1997). This approach places emphasis on the contents of youth culture and on the differences produced by class background. The assumption is that a capitalist society attempts to achieve hegemony by using the cultural values of society for their own benefit. The domination of the adults is enforced through the system of mortgages, credit cards, and family commitments, and they are seduced into accepting the relative security of capitalism. But the youth are relatively free of long-term commitment or responsibility for a family and, with many unemployed, the youth are the weakest point in the structure of hegemony. References Cohen, Albert K. (1955). Delinquent Boys: The Culture of the Gang, Glencoe. IL: Free Press. Cohen, Albert & Short, James, (1958), "Research in Delinquent Subcultures", Journal of Social Issues, pp20–37. Cohen, P. (1972). Sub-cultural Conflict and Working Class Community. Working Papers in Cultural Studies. No.2. Birmingham: University of Birmingham. Crow, Thomas. (1997). "Substance over style - artist Phil Cohen's Rethinking the Youth Question". ArtForum XXXVI, Oct. pp15–16. Frazier, Edward Franklin (1931) The Negro Family in Chicago. Revised and abridged edition: 1967. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Frazier, Edward Franklin. (1932). The Free Negro Family, Arno Press. Frazier, Edward