Генезис молодіжної субкультури: аналіз зарубіжних дослідницьких концепцій
Genesis of youth subculture: analysis of foreign research concepts

Summary/Abstract: The article is dedicated to the analysis of research concepts of formation and development of youth subculture in foreign scientific literature. It was found out that the term "youth subculture" originated in Western science on the verge of social sciences at the beginning of twentieth century in the context of the deviantological investigations of Chicago University scientists, the development of Emile Durkheim’s theory of "anomia", Robert King Merton’s theory of social "tension" and the theory of "conflict of generations" of a number of well-known German and American researchers. The article deals with the analysis of deviantological concepts of origin and development of youth subculture. The main ones are "theory of human ecology” by Amos Hawley and "concept of urbanization as a way of society life” by Louis Wirth. It was found out that the beginning of investigation of youth subculture as a phenomenon of cultural differentiation of society is the understanding of the heterogeneity of social and cultural space. Researchers in the field of sociology, cultural studies, psychology, ethnography and other social sciences, studying the value orientation of ethnic and social groups, state their distinctiveness from the socio-cultural community through marginality and deviance of behavior. It is proved that former USSR and Soviet Ukraine scientists’ research approaches to the problems of youth subculture substantially differ from foreign scientists’ research of the same period. Thus, the concepts of formation and development of youth subculture are mainly limited to the classification of youth associations and periodization of the historical formation of the young generation. The analysis of periodization of formal and informal youth associations’ development makes it possible to identify the main directions of youth trends and find out their political choice, to investigate the formation of social and cultural ideas and to analyze the dynamics of patriotic revival among young people. The need of self-determination, identity, approaching to the global youth community is embodied in the latest trends of youth subculture, forming their own value orientations, spiritual and moral guidance. On the basis of Soviet scientific literature analysis it is found out that scientific interest in youth issues became especially apparent in the social sciences, but was often limited to general problems of the young generation and periodization of the young person development’s stages. In the former USSR there were ethnic, psychological, spiritual, moral, gender, physical problems of youth, that were able to unite it in a certain subculture. However, at a time when in foreign literature there was a variety of scientific approaches to the analysis of youth issues (anthropological, ethnographic, historical, cultural, sociological, etc.), politicization of Soviet scientific literature prevented multiaspect analysis of youth issues and formulated research ideas in line with the Communist Party. Conflict of generations, which was vividly discussed in the context of foreign philosophical and sociological discourse in Soviet literature was denied by ideologically oriented domestic scientists. Rejecting any contradictions in socialist society, they argued that the conflict of generations is possible only within the class structure of society, and under socialism, the contradictions can have only local conditionality. It is concluded, that modern foreign researches on the problems of youth subculture are characterized by a multiplicity of approaches. If at first youth was studied within such sciences as sociology, philosophy, ethnology and psychology, contemporary researches of the present day are enriched by various discourses of modern science, based on the meeting-points of many other humanities. Today reasoning and identifying the nature and trends of youth subculture development requires a complex analysis based on a combination of different methodologies

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