Youth Culture in the Global City: Non-Dominant Cultural Capital and Status among Children of Immigrants in London and New York City.

Through a careful consideration and emphasis on culture, this paper demonstrates the lack of utility of theories of oppositional culture and downward assimilation in describing the trajectories of disadvantaged second generation youth. The paper compares working class and poor second generation teenagers in London and New York City by using school ethnographic, interview (n=130), and survey (n=191) data. Finding that youth in both cities express positive attitudes toward school and education; strong preferences for African American-inspired hip-hop music and styles; and the need to act tough and maintain self-pride, the paper concludes that Nondominant Cultural Capital (NDCC) is a better concept to explain minority urban youth. Urban youth create their own socio-cultural world with its own set of rules, taste preferences, and interactional styles. NDCC buys status for youth within their peer worlds. The most successful teenagers are able to succeed academically as well as within their peer world of NDCC. Indeed, this, rather than rejecting mainstream society and norms, is what most youth say they strive for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]