Keskkoolinoorte käsitlused rõivabrändidest
Date
2005
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Abstract
Description
In my bachelor thesis I analyzed one aspect of the broad area of youngsters´ consumption
in Estonia. The central focus of my work was upon the meaning of clothing brands among
high school students. My main concern was to find out how youngsters interpret the term
“clothing brand”. In addition, I examined youngsters´ attitude towards brands and the
significance of clothing brands in constructing youngsters´ self-identity and forming social
networks.
My work is based on 36 student essays and 6 in-depth interviews. As the thesis is written in
a comparative perspective according to the students´ material position and the availability
of different goods in their surroundings, the data was gathered from three different types of
schools. In my work Väike-Maarja Gymnasium represents a village school, Rakvere
Gymnasium a small town school, Tartu Miina Härma Gymnasium, Tartu Hugo Treffneri
Gymnasium and Tallinna 21. School an elite school.
In the first chapter I gave theoretical and empirical overview of the analyzed field, focusing
on the concepts of consumer culture, youth subcultures and identity, the symbolic meaning
of clothes and branding. My own empirical material is divided into two main subsections.
In the first section I gave the overview of the dominating tendencies of the essays. In the
second one I illustrated these thinking and consuming patterns by portraying the
interviewed persons. In the concluding part I answered to the questions set in the research
and in the discussion section I linked my results with the theoretical and empirical frame
given at the beginning of the thesis.
The subject was worth analyzing because clothes have become significant symbols in the
consumer culture and especially among youngsters who are adapt to the influences of their
peer groups, media, fashion trends and social norms.
My findings indicate to the fact that youngsters´ attitude towards clothing brands and other
consuming goods is ambivalent. On one hand clothing brands have a strong negative
connotation, which is why youngsters are not eager to admit that brands are important to them, on the other hand they stress that wearing clothing brands is a way to find friends,
construct and express identity.
The results also showed that youngsters with different backgrounds have different opinions
and share different values. Students from small town and elite schools have due to their
economical possibilities and availability of goods in their surroundings the opportunity to
buy clothes from brand selling shops. As most of them wear branded clothes, town students
search alternatives to branded products as they want to stand out from the rest of the crowd
and be unique. That is the reason why there are many craft consumers among town
youngsters who like to combine different pieces of clothing and who buy items also from
second hand shops. Village youngsters, on the contrary, prefer branded clothes as there are
few students among them who can afford branded products, being therefore outstanding
and popular.
According to my research results, youngsters´ attitude towards the expressive branded
culture is different. There are two types of consumers – one of which uses brands as a
symbolic cultural resource and means of self-construction (village school students) and the
other one is a resistant and critical consumer (small town and elite school students).
Keywords
H Social Sciences (General), bakalaureusetööd