Table Of ContentA SOCIOLOGY OF JAPANESE YOUTH
Over the past thirty years, at the same time as Japan has produced a diverse set of
youth cultures – such as a nime and m anga – which have had a major impact on
popular culture across the globe, it has also developed a succession of youth prob-
lems which have led to major concerns within the country itself. This volume looks
at some of the best-known of these problems, from the concern over the so-called
returnee children (k ikokushijo) in the 1970s, to the debates over physical punish-
ment ( taibatsu) in the 1980s, to the panic over young girls selling themselves for sex
(e njo ko¯sai) in the 1990s, to growing fears of child abuse ( j ido¯ gyakutai) in the 1990s,
to the most recent issues of young people shutting themselves away in their room
( hikikomori) or appearing to withdraw completely from both the education and the
labour market (NEETs). Drawing on detailed empirical fieldwork, the authors set
these issues in a clearly articulated ‘social constructionist’ framework that explains
why particular youth problems appeared when they did and what lessons they can
provide for the study of youth problems in other societies.
This book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Japanese society
and culture, the sociology of Japan, Japanese anthropology and the comparative
sociology of youth studies.
Roger Goodman is Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies at the University
of Oxford, UK.
Yuki Imoto is a Research Associate at Keio University, Japan.
Tuukka Toivonen is a Junior Research Fellow at Green Templeton College,
University of Oxford, UK.
The Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese Studies Series
Editorial Board
Roger Goodman, Nissan Professor of Modern Japanese Studies, University of Oxford,
Fellow, St Antony’s College; J.A.A. Stockwin, formerly Nissan Professor of Modern
Japanese Studies and former Director of the Nissan Institute of Japanese Studies, University
of Oxford, Emeritus Fellow, St Antony’s College; Alan Rix, Executive Dean, Faculty of
Arts, The University of Queensland; Junji Banno, formerly Professor of the University of
Tokyo, now Professor, Chiba University; Leonard Schoppa, Associate Professor, Department
of Government and Foreign Affairs, and Director of the East Asia Center, University of
Virginia
Other titles in the series:
The Myth of Japanese Uniqueness How the Japanese Learn to Work
Peter Dale Second edition
Ronald P. Dore and Mari Sako
The Emperor’s Adviser
Saionji Kinmochi and pre-war Japanese Japanese Economic Development
politics Theory and practice
Lesley Connors Second edition
Penelope Francks
A History of Japanese Economic
Thought Japan and Protection
Tessa Morris-Suzuki The growth of protectionist sentiment
and the Japanese response
The Establishment of the Syed Javed Maswood
Japanese Constitutional
System The Soil, by Nagatsuka Takashi
Junji Banno, translated by A portrait of rural life in Meiji Japan
J.A.A. Stockwin Translated and with an introduction
by Ann Waswo
Industrial Relations in Japan
The peripheral workforce Biotechnology in Japan
Norma Chalmers Malcolm Brock
Banking Policy in Japan Britain’s Educational Reform
American efforts at reform during the A comparison with Japan
Occupation Michael Howarth
William M. Tsutsui
Language and the Modern State
Educational Reform in Japan The reform of written Japanese
Leonard Schoppa Nanette Twine
Industrial Harmony in Ceremony and Ritual in Japan
Modern Japan Religious practices in an industrialized
The intervention of a tradition society
W. Dean Kinzley Edited by Jan van Bremen and
D.P. Martinez
Japanese Science Fiction
A view of a changing society The Fantastic in Modern Japanese
Robert Matthew Literature
The subversion of modernity
The Japanese Numbers Game Susan J. Napier
The use and understanding of numbers
in modern Japan Militarization and
Thomas Crump Demilitarization in Contemporary
Japan
Ideology and Practice in Glenn D. Hook
Modern Japan
Edited by Roger Goodman and Growing a Japanese Science City
Kirsten Refsing Communication in scientific research
James W. Dearing
Technology and Industrial
Development in Pre-war Japan Architecture and Authority
Mitsubishi Nagasaki Shipyard, in Japan
1884–1934 William H. Coaldrake
Yukiko Fukasaku
Women’s Gidayu¯ and the Japanese
Japan’s Early Parliaments, Theatre Tradition
1890–1905 A. Kimi Coaldrake
Structure, issues and trends
Andrew Fraser, R.H.P. Mason and Democracy in Post-war Japan
Philip Mitchell Maruyama Masao and the search
for autonomy
Japan’s Foreign Aid Challenge Rikki Kersten
Policy reform and aid leadership
Alan Rix Treacherous Women of Imperial
Japan
Emperor Hirohito and Patriarchal fictions, patricidal fantasies
Shôwa Japan Hélène Bowen Raddeker
A political biography
Stephen S. Large Japanese-German Business
Relations
Japan: Beyond the End of Competition and rivalry in the
History inter-war period
David Williams Akira Kudo¯
Japan, Race and Equality Endo¯ Shu¯saku
The Racial Equality Proposal of 1919 A literature of reconciliation
Naoko Shimazu Mark B. Williams
Japan, Internationalism and Green Politics in Japan
the UN Lam Peng-Er
Ronald Dore
The Japanese High School
Life in a Japanese Women’s Silence and resistance
College Shoko Yoneyama
Learning to be ladylike
Brian J. McVeigh Engineers in Japan and Britain
Education, training and employment
On The Margins of Japanese Kevin McCormick
Society
Volunteers and the welfare of the The Politics of Agriculture in Japan
urban underclass Aurelia George Mulgan
Carolyn S. Stevens
Opposition Politics in Japan
The Dynamics of Japan’s Strategies under a one-party dominant
Relations with Africa regime
South Africa, Tanzania and Nigeria Stephen Johnson
Kweku Ampiah
The Changing Face of Japanese
The Right to Life in Japan Retail
Noel Williams Working in a chain store
Louella Matsunaga
The Nature of the Japanese State
Rationality and rituality Japan and East Asian Regionalism
Brian J. McVeigh Edited by S Javed Maswood
Society and the State in Globalizing Japan
Inter-war Japan Ethnography of the Japanese
Edited by Elise K. Tipton presence in America, Asia and Europe
Edited by Harumi Befu and
Japanese-Soviet/Russian Sylvie Guichard-Anguis
Relations since 1945
A difficult peace Japan at Play
Kimie Hara The ludic and logic of power
Edited by Joy Hendry and Massimo Raveri
Interpreting History in
Sino-Japanese Relations The Making of Urban Japan
A case study in political decision Cities and planning from Edo to the
making twenty-first century
Caroline Rose André Sorensen
Public Policy and Economic The Race to Commercialize
Competition in Japan Biotechnology
Change and continuity in Molecules, markets and the state in the
antimonopoly policy, 1973–1995 United States and Japan
Michael L. Beeman Steve W Collins
Men and Masculinities in Institutions, Incentives and
Contemporary Japan Electoral Participation in Japan
Dislocating the salaryman doxa Cross-level and cross-national
Edited by James E. Roberson and perspectives
Nobue Suzuki Yusaku Horiuchi
The Voluntary and Non-Profit Japan’s Interventionist State
Sector in Japan The role of the MAFF
The challenge of change Aurelia George Mulgan
Edited by Stephen P. Osborne
Japan’s Sea Lane Security,
Japan’s Security Relations with 1940–2004
China ‘A matter of life and death’?
From balancing to bandwagoning Euan Graham
Reinhard Drifte
The Changing Japanese Political
Understanding Japanese Society System
Third edition The Liberal Democratic Party and the
Joy Hendry Ministry of Finance
Harumi Hori
Japanese Electoral Politics
Creating a new party system Japan’s Agricultural Policy
Edited by Steven R. Reed Regime
Aurelia George Mulgan
The Japanese-Soviet Neutrality
Pact Cold War Frontiers in the
A diplomatic history, 1941–1945 Asia-Pacific
Boris Slavinsky translated by Divided territories in the
Geoffrey Jukes San Francisco System
Kimie Hara
Academic Nationalism in China
and Japan Living Cities in Japan
Framed by concepts of nature, Citizens’ movements, machizukuri
culture and the universal and local environments
Margaret Sleeboom Andre Sorensen and Carolin Funck
Resolving the Russo-Japanese The Buraku Issue and Modern
Territorial Dispute Japan
Hokkaido–Sakhalin relations The career of Matsumoto Jiichiro¯
Brad Williams Ian Neary
Modern Japan Labor Migration from China to
A social and political history Japan
Second edition International students, transnational
Elise K Tipton migrants
Gracia Liu-Farrer
The Transformation of the
Japanese Left Policy Entrepreneurship and
From old socialists to new democrats Elections in Japan
Sarah Hyde A political biography of Ozawa
Ichiro¯
Social Class in Contemporary Takashi Oka
Japan
Edited by Hiroshi Ishida and Japan’s Postwar
David H. Slater Edited by Michael Lucken, Anne
Bayard-Sakai and Emmanuel Lozerand
The US–Japan Alliance Translated by J. A. A. Stockwin
Balancing soft and hard power in
East Asia An Emerging Non-Regular
Edited by David Arase and Labour Force in Japan
Tsuneo Akaha The dignity of dispatched workers
Huiyan Fu
Party Politics and
Decentralization in Japan and A Sociology of Japanese Youth
France From returnees to NEETs
When the opposition governs Edited by Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto
Koichi Nakano and Tuukka Toivonen
A SOCIOLOGY OF
JAPANESE YOUTH
From returnees to NEETs
Edited by Roger Goodman,
Yuki Imoto and
Tuukka Toivonen
First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
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© 2012 Editorial selection and matter, Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto and
Tuukka Toivonen; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Roger Goodman, Yuki Imoto and Tuukka Toivonen to be
identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
A sociology of Japanese youth : from returnees to NEETs / edited by Roger
Goodman, Yuki Imoto & Tuukka Toivonen.
p. cm. – (The Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese studies series ; 83)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Youth–Japan–Social conditions. 2. Social problems–Japan. I. Goodman,
Roger, 1960- II. Imoto, Yuki, 1981- III. Toivonen, Tuukka H. I. (Tuukka
Hannu Ilmari), 1979- IV. Series: Nissan Institute/Routledge Japanese studies
series ; 83.
HQ799.J3S63 2011
305.235089’956–dc22
2011014395
ISBN 978-0-415-66926-9 (hbk)
ISBN 978-0-415-66927-6 (pbk)
ISBN 978-0-203-80207-6 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
by Cenveo Publisher Services
CONTENTS
List of Illustrations xi
Contributors xiv
Preface xvi
Acknowledgements xviii
A Note to the Reader xx
1 Making Sense of Youth Problems 1
Tuukka Toivonen and Yuki Imoto
2 From Pitiful to Privileged? The Fifty-Year Story
of the Changing Perception and S tatus of Japan’s
Returnee Children (k ikokushijo ) 30
Roger Goodman
3 Narratives and Statistics: How Compensated Dating
( enjo ko¯sai ) was Sold 54
Sharon Kinsella
4 Taibatsu: From Educational Solution to Social Problem
to Marginalized Non-Issue 81
Aaron L. Miller
5 The ‘Discovery’ and ‘Rediscovery’ of Child Abuse
( jido¯ gyakutai ) in Japan 98
Roger Goodman
