Help with dissertation?

Question

I have started research on football violence particularly the commonly held perception surrounding interpersonal violence which suggests that so called football hooligans are mindless uneducated thugs. In fact many of them are highly educated with an entrepreneurial spirit who hold and have high standards and morals, particularly regarding kinship ties and family obligations. I want to go down the route of gender and subculture (I'm female).
any suggestions/ideas would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Gender - I would like to see a dissertation that contains, in part, the longitudinal historical development of instinctual aggressiveness from the beginning age of humankind by gender as to what roles and needs for the same were foisted upon each gender. That being a part, and as a predicate to how that instinctual aggressiveness in the genders, have been shaped by social demands and permissive roles, and how those instincts have been societally repressed, and how under repression, those instincts now burst out of those repressions by vicarious pressure built up by observing artful and aggressive legal display of human male instincts, limited by few superego restraints, to-wit: football. The high percentage of men who suffer with restrained and repressed aggressiveness in their daily occupations have a grand insertion of vicarious aggression by absorbing from the audience when watching the game. That vicarious attachment does not just dissipate. It vents. Then with that insertion of the male game, how has the female adjusted in response. Thank you for your consideration.

Answer 2

My observations over many years of following Swansea City are that in the main, the commonly held perception of mindless uneducated thugs holds true.

The highly educated thug you describe is a rare beast indeed. I would be suprised if anyone with a current banning order held anything above a first degree, if that.

I say this because of simple logic: The more you have, the more you have to lose.

I suggest you research these bans as a starting point.

I would wager that in the majority of spontaneous dust-ups, the average IQ would come out at less than 100.

This does not preclude there being a sizeable element of upwardly mobile fans who possess reasonable intelligence yet still are not averse to a bit of a ruck. I feel this group is where much of the organised violence originates.

This group in my experience are usually organised in sub-networks within the overall frame, often rooted geographically in terms of where they grew up and who they grew up with. Territorially they are proud and defensive.

In terms of what you call entrepreneurial spirit, does that encompass activities only within the margins of the law? I would suggest you also research whether this network involves other crime and to what level it is organised. Drug dealing may be of interest as a starting point.

I personally feel the media make more of these educated thugs than there actually is. It sells papers. After all, who would want their middle class son growing up to be a violent Daily Mail front page headline?

Answer 3

As a person with a degree of intelligence, I am pleased to try to explain my thoughts on the subject.

Youth is not an exclusive sector of violence, be it vocal or physical. There is a preponderance of more mature, educated and, as you comment, moral. However, there is a culture that is normally acceptable in the animal world, that of pack violence. It could be argued that the animal instincts are latent in youth with brain excellence but evolve over time.

In general, bad behaviour, a generic term for this subject, seems to have increased, particularly around sporting events. Noticeable, however, is that some sports are much less prone to violence. Why is this? Tennis, golf, athletics are almost devoid of violence but football, being the most followed 'sport' in England is always being cited as a hotbed of violence.

Football, by its very aggresive play, is often the seat of violence due to a so called 'loyalty' and the thought that none is better than the one being supported by the perpetrator of the violence.

Often, the aggressors are not ill at ease with anything else and become members of factions often with their peers who feel so discontent that their normal behaviour is absent.

Society is bound to be various and there will never be 'peace' in events where loyalty is paramount. After all, the cost of admisssion to football matches is fairly hefty and the risks of being caught outweigh the attitudes of some.

I hope some of this will be useful.

Answer 4

Suggest you start by determining if you are trying to organize and present facts and perhaps increase the world's knowledge or if you are trying to make some political point.
But in either case, you need to establish a general info gathering process, with control group vs target. Violent fans, nonviolent fans, violent nonfans, nonviolent nonfans would seem to be the general groups to deal with.