The influence of sociocultural and environmental factors on the adolescents’ life and development: Japanese youth from a Western readers perspective

This article provides an analysis of phenomena of youth in Japan by means of a literature review. A rich literature on Japanese youth has been published during the last decade, which provides us with information on a variety of topics. By focussing on sources published in Western languages a selection is drawn to research presented as relevant to Western readers. Japan is known as a highly dynamic society. How do children and youth adjust to the ever-changing social and cultural environment? And how can we identify and analyse the most relevant sociocultural and environmental factors and their relationships to each other, which obviously have a strong influence on the adolescents’ life and development? These questions can guide us when structuring the available information according to Bronfenbrenner’s ecological perspective of human development. I will illustrate findings from recent journal articles on central topics like the school to work transition, recent educational reforms and youth culture and discuss these on the background of context knowledge on Japanese youth from former theoretical and empirical studies.