Review: Alexandra König (2007). Kleider schaffen Ordnung. Regeln und Mythen jugendlicher Selbst-Präsentation [Clothing and Social Order: Rules and Myths of Juvenile Self-Presentation]

Authors

  • Yvonne Niekrenz Universität Rostock

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-11.1.1413

Keywords:

clothing, fashion, sociology of youth, social inequality

Abstract

Alexandra KOENIG's book analyses juvenile clothing behaviour and the development of individual taste using BOURDIEU's theory of class distinctions. By means of qualitative single and group interviews with adolescents the author reconstructs how aesthetic practice is related to social order and unmasks the freedom of choice in developing preferences and styles as a myth. In fact, she argues, clothing reproduces social inequality and establishes social order. Using theoretical concepts developed by Erving GOFFMAN the author sheds light on the stages of self presentation. Although the adolescents in the sample are heterogeneous in terms of their social background—on the one hand pupils of a secondary modern school (Hauptschule), on the other hand of an international private school (Privatschule)—the empirical work produces an answer to the question of how "individual styles," social inequality and a juvenile habitus are produced by clothing. The book shows how social order gets transformed into class-, gender- and age-specific self presentation. URN: urn:nbn:de:0114-fqs100190

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Author Biography

Yvonne Niekrenz, Universität Rostock

Yvonne NIEKRENZ, M.A. studierte Soziologie und Germanistik, ist wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin am Institut für Soziologie und Demographie der Universität Rostock (Lehrstuhl Soziologische Theorien und Theoriegeschichte – Prof. Dr. Matthias JUNGE) und hat einen Lehrauftrag an der Universität Bielefeld.

Published

2009-11-26

How to Cite

Niekrenz, Y. (2009). Review: Alexandra König (2007). Kleider schaffen Ordnung. Regeln und Mythen jugendlicher Selbst-Präsentation [Clothing and Social Order: Rules and Myths of Juvenile Self-Presentation]. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung Forum: Qualitative Social Research, 11(1). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-11.1.1413