A Sociology Of Japanese Youth

This book puts forth a sociology of Japanese youth problems showing that the Japanese media draw on an equally, if not more, perplexing gallery of social categories when it discusses youth than affluent Western societies such as the US or UK and that Japan is no less replete with social problems involving young people and no less capable of generating hysteria over the fate of its youth than affluent Western societies such as the US or UK.

From the 1960s onwards, Japan's rapid economic growth coincided with remarkably low youth unemployment. However, since the 1990s the ease with which young people have historically moved from education to employment has ended, and unemployment is now a real and growing problem. This book examines how the state, experts, the media as well as youth workers, have responded to the troubling rise of youth joblessness in 21st century Japan.

Japan is not only the oldest society in the world today, but also the oldest society to have ever existed. This aging trend, however, presents many challenges to contemporary Japan, as it permeates all areas of life, from the economy and welfare to social cohesion and population decline. Nobody is more affected by these changes than the young generation. This book studies Japanese youth in the aging society in detail. It analyses formative events and cultural reactions. Themes include employment, parenthood, sexuality, but also art, literature and language, thus demonstrating how the younger generation can provide insights into the future of Japanese society more generally. This book argues that the prolonged crisis resulted in a commonly shared destabilization of thoughts and attitudes and that this has shaped a new generation that is unlike any other in post-war Japan. Presenting an inter-disciplinary approach to the study of the aging trend and what it implies for young Japanese, this book will be useful to students and scholars of Japanese culture and society, as well cultural anthropology and demography.

This book explores state controls in Japan, focusing on the interrelation of inequality and deviance of youth and migrant groups which leads to crime.

This book highlights recent education research on Japan based on sociological and other related approaches to historical developments and accomplishments. Written primarily by members of the Japan Society of Educational Sociology, it brings to light concerns and viewpoints that have grown out of the Japanese educational context. By focusing on uniquely Japanese educational research phenomena, the book offers international readers new insights and contributes to the international debate on education. It may help sociologists and social scientists outside Japan gain a deeper understanding of ongoing changes in education in Japan as well as its historical and structural contexts.

Japanese youth and foreign migrants face stringent institutionalised controls in Japan. This book questions the efficacy of such social controls, focusing on the interrelation of inequality (powerlessness, discriminate controls and class inequality) and deviance (largely derived from power and the violation of informal and formal norms). It provides a comprehensive detailed description and explanation of inequality and deviance of Japanese youth and 17 foreign migrant groups. The book is aimed at individuals, students and academicians interested in Japan area studies.

In this study, a group of young Japanese sociologists scrutinizes the sociological foundations of the ways in which the Japanese people produce and consume cultural commodities and live their everyday lives surrounded by these products.