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

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).

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."--"Publishers Weekly