Subcultures come in many different forms, from teds and skinheads to skateboarders, clubbers, New Age travelers and comic book fans. The Subcultures Reader brings together key writings on subcultures beginning with the early work of the Chicago School on "deviant" social groups such as gangs and taxi-dancers, and research from the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham during the 1970s on working-class youth cultures and punks.
These classic texts are combined with essential contemporary writings on an eclectic array of subcultural formations defined through their social position, their styles, their sexuality, their politics and their music. Subcultures can be local and face-to-face; but they can also be global, mediated and "virtual." This new edition gives expression to the diversity of subcultural identifications, from communities, scenes and "tribes" to the "global underground."