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. The chapters include case studies covering issues such as: Returnee children Compensated dating Corporeal punishment Child abuse The withdrawn youth NEET (not in education, employment or training) By examining these various social problems collectively The Sociology of Japanese Youth shows how seemingly disparate events follow a similar pattern and how clusters of concepts are historically linked. The book simultaneously illuminates the mechanisms of social problem construction, the Japanese #xE2;#xAC;#xDC;cultural#xE2;#xAC;" repositories that continue to be drawn upon, and the changes and dynamisms created by actors in Japanese society that the social problem discourse reflect. This book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Japanese society and culture, the sociololgy of Japan, Japanese anthropology and comparative sociology of youth studies.

Roger Goodman is Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University of Oxford, UK. Yuki Imoto is an Assistant Professor at Keio University, Japan. Tuukka Toivonen is a Junior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College, University of Oxford, UK.