Deviant Subcultural Responses

The boys in Hargreaves' study were labelled as failures on the basis of poor academic performance in school, yet like everyone else they desired status. Where it was denied to them officially, they developed unofficial status groups and, because they lacked any real power within the school, the only way to define and express status within the deviant subculture was through explicit opposition to school norms and values

This opposition was manifested in a number of different ways: through disrespect to those in authority, the disruption of the orderly flow of school life and lessons, explicit cheating (since they were not going to "succeed" there was little point in not cheating) and truancy.