Youth Culture & the 'Permissive Society' (AQA A Level History: Component 2: Depth study): Revision Note

Youth culture and the 'permissive society'

Why a distinct youth culture emerged

• Several changes gave young people a stronger sense of identity

  • Rising living standards left many teenagers with more money to spend

  • The end of national service in 1960 removed a shared route into adult discipline

  • Longer education kept young people together in age groups for longer

  • More leisure time gave them greater freedom during evenings and weekends

• Young people often questioned the values of their parents' generation

  • Disagreements focused on fashion, music, and moral standards

    • Some older commentators presented this as evidence of declining behaviour

  • Reports of teenage drug use and promiscuity were often exaggerated

Fashion and music

• London became an international centre of fashion during the mid-1960s

  • Traditional dress rules weakened

  • Women wore trousers and miniskirts

  • Men wore brighter colours and fabrics, such as velvet and satin

  • New fashions reduced some visible differences between social classes

• Music became a major part of youth identity

  • Cheap record players and records made popular music available to most teenagers

  • A 1969 survey found that young people spent more time listening to music in their bedrooms than at youth clubs or rock festivals

  • Television programmes such as Ready Steady Go and Top of the Pops also spread new music, dance and fashion

• Teenagers became an important consumer market

  • Businesses produced films, music and clothing specifically for them

Rival youth subcultures

• Distinct subcultures emerged, each with its own style, music and outlook

Mods, rockers and the moral panic

• Clashes between mods and rockers attracted heavy press coverage

  • Fighting took place at seaside resorts such as Clacton and Brighton in 1964

  • Further disorder occurred at Brighton in 1965

• Newspapers presented the clashes as a major threat to public order

  • Later sociologists use this coverage as an example of a moral panic

    • This meant that the public reaction was greater than the scale of the original disorder

• Most young people were not involved in violence

  • Many continued to spend their free time with friends or in established youth organisations

  • Membership of groups such as the Scouts, Guides, Cubs and Brownies remained high

    • Membership of these organisations rose from around 471,000 in 1945 to 539,340 by 1970

Approach: The report was written by adults involved in youth clubs after events at Brighton in 1965. It argues that most young people were not violent and that newspapers had exaggerated the disorder

The organisation had a reason to defend young people and the work of youth clubs, so its account may understate the seriousness of some incidents. However, it is useful because it is based on observers present in Brighton and gives a different view from the newspaper coverage

Changing moral attitudes

What the "permissive society" meant

• The term "permissive society" described looser attitudes towards sex, drugs, and personal behaviour

  • Supporters linked it to greater tolerance and personal freedom

  • Critics used it negatively, arguing that traditional moral standards were weakening

• Several developments were linked to these changes

  • The contraceptive pill became more widely available

  • The National Health Service (Family Planning) Act (1967) allowed local authorities to provide contraceptives and advice

  • Television, radio, books and magazines discussed subjects that had previously received little public attention

  • Liberal legislation on divorce, abortion, and homosexual relations also changed the law

Evidence of changing behaviour

• Some statistics suggest that personal behaviour was changing

  • Illegitimate births rose from 5.8% to 8.2% of live births between 1960 and 1970

  • Rates of sexually transmitted infections increased, particularly among young people

• Drug use became more visible

  • Cocaine and heroin addiction became around ten times more common during the first half of the 1960s

  • The use of softer drugs, including cannabis, had become more common by the end of the decade

• Drug culture was also linked to popular music

  • Hippies promoted ideas such as free love and "flower power"

  • Some musicians, including the Beatles, reportedly used LSD

• However, surveys found that most young people still held relatively traditional attitudes towards sex and marriage, despite the public image of the decade

  • According to Michael Schofield’s 1965 study and Geoffrey Gorer’s survey, published in 1971, a high percentage of young people were still virgins when they married, or they married their first sexual partner

Opposition to permissiveness

• Government policy did not always support more permissive attitudes

  • The Dangerous Drugs Act (1967) gave the police new powers to stop and search people for drugs

  • The Wootton Report (1968) recommended decriminalising soft drugs, including cannabis

    • Home Secretary James Callaghan rejected the recommendation

  • Callaghan's Misuse of Drugs Bill (1970) proposed a maximum of 14 years for supplying drugs; it became law in 1971

• Religious and moral campaigners also opposed these changes

  • The Catholic Church rejected the contraceptive pill as contrary to church teaching

  • Mary Whitehouse campaigned against declining standards on television

• Writers presented different views of the decade

  • Philip Larkin's poem 'Annus Mirabilis', published in 1974, linked the beginning of sexual liberation to 1963

    • As it was written later, it shows how the 1960s were remembered rather than providing direct evidence of behaviour at the time

Approach: Callaghan spoke during a House of Commons debate on the Wootton report in January 1969. As Home Secretary he was responsible for government policy on drugs and used the speech to reject calls for reduced penalties

His description of permissiveness as an advancing tide shows that some senior Labour ministers believed reform had already gone too far. However, the source explains Callaghan's political position rather than showing how widely permissive behaviour had spread

Progress towards female equality

Barbara Castle. © European Union, 2013 – Source: EP, via Wikimedia Commons. Cropped from the original.

Changes in women's choices

• Several developments gave women greater control over their lives

  • Labour-saving devices reduced the time spent on some domestic tasks

  • Wider access to education raised expectations about employment and careers

  • More jobs became available to women, providing greater financial independence

  • Reliable contraception reduced the risk of unwanted pregnancy

  • The Divorce Reform Act (1969) made it easier to leave a marriage that had broken down

Limits to change

• Women remained under-represented in public life

  • Only 81 women stood for election in 1966

    • Only 26 women were elected as MPs, about 4% of the House of Commons

  • Women made up 28% of students in higher education in 1970

    • Yet women held only around 5% of managerial posts

The women's movement and equal pay

• Second-wave feminism reached Britain from the United States during the mid-1960s

  • Campaigners argued that legal equality had not produced equality in everyday life

  • They challenged:

    • unequal pay

    • limited career opportunities

    • the expectation that women should take primary responsibility for the home and children

• Feminist writing helped spread these ideas

  • Betty Friedan published The Feminine Mystique in 1963

  • Germaine Greer published The Female Eunuch in 1970

• The Dagenham sewing machinists' strike of 1968 placed equal pay on the political agenda

  • Women sewing machinists at the Ford factory protested after their work was placed in a lower pay grade than work carried out by men

  • Employment Secretary Barbara Castle intervened in the dispute

  • The women received a 7% pay increase, although they did not immediately achieve equal pay

• The Equal Pay Act of 1970 established the principle of equal pay for equal work

  • It did not come into force until 1975

    • Not all businesses followed this Act

Women's liberation

• The first National Women's Liberation Conference was held at Ruskin College, Oxford, in 1970

• Campaigners agreed four main demands:

  • equal pay

  • equal educational and employment opportunities

  • free contraception and abortion on request

  • free 24-hour childcare

• Progress by 1970 remained limited

  • The women's movement gained more influence during the 1970s

  • Traditional expectations about women's role in marriage, childcare, and the home remained common

Approach: Germaine Greer was a feminist writer and academic whose book The Female Eunuch was published in 1970. Her argument is useful for showing the frustration of second-wave feminists, particularly over women's limited access to professional work and positions of influence

However, Greer was writing a polemical book intended to challenge existing attitudes and encourage more radical change. Her language therefore reflects the aims of the feminist movement rather than the views of women as a whole. Employment figures and evidence about women's education can be used to judge how typical her description was

Anti-Vietnam War protest

Tony Byers/Alamy

The growth of anti-war protest

• United States involvement in Vietnam increased sharply after 1964

  • Newspaper and television coverage of civilian suffering increased opposition to the war

  • Harold Wilson's government did not send British troops but it refused to condemn the United States

    • This angered many people on the left

• Opposition to the war brought student protest and radical politics together

  • Teach-ins were held at Oxford University and the London School of Economics in the summer of 1965

  • The Vietnam Solidarity Campaign was founded in 1966

    • It gained considerable support among students

The Battle of Grosvenor Square, March 1968

• On the 17th March, 1968, around 10,000 people marched from Trafalgar Square to the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square

• Violence broke out between some protesters and the police, and the demonstration turned into a riot

  • More than 200 people were arrested

  • 86 people received treatment for injuries

    • 50 were taken to hospital

  • Up to 25 police officers were among those injured

• The event became known as the Battle of Grosvenor Square

  • Television coverage brought the violence to a wide audience

  • The scene shocked many members of the public

Protest beyond Grosvenor Square

• Anti-war protests also spread through universities

  • A speaker from the American Embassy was covered in red paint at Sussex

  • Two Conservative MPs were physically attacked at Essex

  • Demands for greater student power were often combined with the opposition to the Vietnam War

• A second major demonstration took place in London on 27 October 1968

  • Around 30,000 people took part

  • Home Secretary James Callaghan refused to stop it from happening

  • Heavy policing was used, but the march remained mainly peaceful

The significance of anti-war protest

• The protest formed part of a wider international wave of unrest in 1968, including demonstrations in:

  • France

  • Italy

  • the United States

  • communist Eastern Europe

• Anti-war protest in Britain remained smaller than in several other countries

  • Britain had no military draft

  • British troops were not fighting in Vietnam

  • The protest did not threaten the survival of Wilson's government

• The demonstrations did not change the government's policy towards the United States

• Their main impact was on youth politics and public protest

  • They linked youth culture with radical political activism

  • They made student protests more visible

  • They led the government to increase surveillance of political activists

Approach: James Callaghan made this statement in the House of Commons on 24 October 1968, three days before the second major demonstration. As Home Secretary he was responsible for public order and had to decide whether the march should be banned

The source shows that the government expected some risk of violence but also wanted to protect the right to peaceful protest. As it was issued before the march, it records official concerns and expectations rather than an explanation shaped by the outcome

Immigration and race

Continuing racial tension

• Immigration from the New Commonwealth continued during the 1960s

  • Racial tensions from the late 1950s and early 1960s remained

• A survey in North London in 1965 found that:

  • 1 in 5 people objected to working with a Black or Asian colleague

  • around half would refuse to live next door to a Black person

  • 9 in 10 disapproved of mixed marriage

Government response

• Governments tried to combine two different policies:

  • restricting further immigration

  • reducing discrimination against people already living in Britain

• James Callaghan described this as a balanced approach

  • Critics argued that limiting entry while introducing race relations laws was contradictory

Legislation, 1965–1968

Callaghan's approach

• Home Secretary James Callaghan defended the Commonwealth Immigrants Act (1968)

  • He linked tighter immigration controls with the introduction of a stronger Race Relations Bill

  • He presented the two measures as parts of the same policy

Approach: In this speech Callaghan was defending the government's decision to restrict immigration while also promising stronger laws against racial discrimination

This makes the source useful for showing how Labour presented the two policies as part of a balanced approach. However, because Callaghan was defending the Bill, he had a reason to make the policy appear fair and consistent.

Powell and the reaction

• Enoch Powell delivered his "Rivers of Blood" speech in Birmingham on 20 April, 1968

  • He argued that continued immigration would cause serious social conflict

  • His language presented immigration as a threat to existing communities

Approach: As a senior frontbench politician, Powell was speaking publicly about immigration policy and trying to influence both his party and the wider debate

The source is useful for showing how immigration could be presented in highly emotional and threatening terms. However, Powell relied on an unnamed constituent and made predictions about the future, so the speech is stronger evidence of his political message than the actual scale of racial conflict

• Conservative leader Edward Heath dismissed Powell from the Shadow Cabinet the following day

• Powell still received considerable public support

  • A Gallup poll found that 75% of the population supported what he had said

  • Dockers and meat porters in London went on strike and marched to Downing Street in his support

• Reactions to Heath's decision were divided

  • Some believed Powell's speech made voters more likely to support the Conservatives

  • Others argued that his dismissal showed political principle

Integration and cultural change

• There was also evidence of communities living together without major conflict

  • The Notting Hill Carnival became an annual event from 1964

  • Asian corner shops and Chinese takeaways introduced new foods to British high streets

  • Caribbean communities influenced music, fashion, and street life

• Youth culture also drew on styles from immigrant communities

  • Skinheads adopted West Indian ska and reggae

  • Some hippies wore Indian and African fabrics, kaftans and beads

How 'permissive' had British society become by 1970?

• This question compares changes in law, behaviour and attitudes with evidence that change remained limited or uneven

  • Some key evidence for each side is outlined below

Signs of a more permissive society

• The law changed significantly between 1964 and 1970:

  • divorce became easier

  • abortion became legal in certain circumstances

  • some homosexual acts between men were decriminalised

  • capital punishment was abolished

  • theatre censorship ended

• Some behaviour also changed

  • illegitimate births increased

  • rates of sexually transmitted infections rose

  • drug use became more visible

• Youth culture challenged traditional ideas about fashion, music and personal behaviour

• Contraception and easier divorce gave some women greater control over their lives

• Public protest became a more accepted form of political action

• Respect for traditional authority, including the churches, continued to weaken

Limits to permissiveness

• Surveys suggested that most young people still held traditional views about sex and marriage

  • Michael Schofield’s 1965 study and Geoffrey Gorer’s survey, published in 1971, both found that most young people were either virgins at marriage or married their first sexual partner

• The government did not always support permissive change:

  • Callaghan rejected the Wootton Report

  • penalties for drugs were increased

• Change was strongest among young people in large cities, especially London

  • Many people outside these groups experienced much less change

• Class divisions and the influence of the Establishment changed little

  • Public schools and the 'old boy network' still shaped access to power

• Attitudes towards race often remained hostile

  • The response to Powell's speech showed continuing racial tension

• Progress towards women's equality was slow

  • Women remained concentrated in lower-paid work

  • Traditional expectations about marriage, childcare and the home continued

• Opposition remained organised and influential

  • The Catholic Church opposed the contraceptive pill

  • Mary Whitehouse's campaign attracted substantial support