The Material Child: Coming of Age in Japan and America / Edition 1

by Merry White

Overview

As she describes the youth culture of Japan, Merry White draws comparisons with the interests and activities pursued by teenagers in the United States and the contrasting attitudes of adults in Japan and the U.S. towards adolescence. The result is both engrossing and enlightening.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520089402
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	09/29/1994
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Merry White is Associate Professor of Sociology at Boston University and research associate at the Reischauer Institute, Harvard. She is the author of The Japanese Educational Challenge: A Commitment to Children (1987).

Table of Contents

Preface to the Paperback Edition
Glossary
Introduction

1. Rethinking the Life Course
Mixed Messages and Complementary Contradictions in the Creation of Adolescence
2. Youth in Time
Culture, History, and the Idea of the Teen
3. Family Time and Space
4. School in the Life of the Teen
5. The Material Child
Buying and Bonding
6. Friendship
Best Friends and Group Training
7. Sexuality
Illusions and Reality
8. Big Thoughts

Appendix: School Regulations in Japan
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgments
Index
Photographs of teenagers in Kyoto and Osaka by Yara Sellin, 1994

Editorial Reviews

In this exemplary cross-cultural study of teenagers in the U.S. and Japan, White ( The Japanese Educational Challenge ) zeros in on the critical differences and similarities in the way these groups are socialized, contending that conflicting social mores cause much of the current perplexity in the two countries' relations. While some of the material has surface familiarity, White's in-depth examination of each group's schooling, friendships, family relations, sexuality, search for identity and feelings about their own and each others' countries is newly revealing. The book reflects White's 30-odd years of teaching and studying young people in both Japan and the U.S.--where she is an associate professor of sociology at Boston University and a research associate at Harvard's Reischauer Institute. For this study, she interviewed a relatively small, but broad, cross section of her two societies, teenagers as well as psychologists, marketers and music promoters who play key roles in the lives of these adolescents. Because many of them are newly affluent, they face similar conditions, which is a particlarly instructive focus in a superb, thorough and accessible account. (Mar.)

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