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All the young dudes: educational capital, masculinity and the uses of popular music

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 February 2012

Andrew Branch
Andrew Branch
Affiliation:
School of Arts and Digital Industries, University of East London, Docklands Campus, 4–6 University Way, London E16 2RD, UK E-mail: [email protected]
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Abstract

Since its emergence in the early 1970s, glam rock has been theoretically categorised as a moment in British popular culture in which essentialist ideas about male gendered identity were rendered problematic for a popular music audience. Drawing on a Bourdieusian theoretical framework, the article argues that while this reading of glam is valid, insufficient attention has been given to an examination of the relevance of educational capital vis-à-vis the construction of self-identity in relation to glam. It is therefore concerned with raising questions about social class in addition to interrogating questions of gender. The article draws on the ethno-biographies of a sample of glam's original working class male fans: original interviews with musicians and writers associated with glam, as well as published biographical accounts. In doing so it contends that glam's political significance is better understood as a moment in popular culture in which an educationally aspirant section of the male working-class sought to express its difference by identifying with the self-conscious performance of a more feminised masculinity it located in glam.

Type
Articles
Information
Popular Music , Volume 31 , Issue 1 , January 2012 , pp. 25 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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