There is an increasing population of youth in Japan who are being pushed to the periphery of Japanese society. These include the NEETs (Not in Employment Education or Training), the Freeters (low-skill workers in highly insecure jobs), and the hikikomori (social isolates). We argue that Japanese youth marginalization has resulted, in large part, from economic and social structural changes in post-industrial Japan. We further argue that any discussion of values and motivational processes of youth should be examined within the context of the cultural and societal forces that are marginalizing many of them. In doing so, we compare at-risk youth with mainstream youth on independence and interdependence, post-materialist attitudes, and motivational styles. Additionally, we discuss the role that religion has played on helping youth transition into adulthood in the past versus in the present. Finally, we conclude the chapter by discussing the youth volunteer movement in the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and what that might represent for the values and future of Japanese youth.

In this attachment-theoretical chapter, I highlight relations between attachment and religious development in adolescence, while taking cultural implications into account. I argue that adolescence is a sensitive phase of development related to both attachment and religiosity. This period is often associated with transfer of attachment functions from parents to age-mates. In the religious realm, this period may be linked to either increased religiosity (e.g., conversion) or to disengagement from religion. During adolescence, an attachment-like relationship with God may also develop. Furthermore, on the basis of empirical studies, I discuss the implications of individual differences in attachment security for religious development in adolescence. I distinguish between two notable developmental pathways: secure attachment to religious caregivers as a basis for religious stability (“correspondence pathway”) and insecure attachment to caregivers as a basis of distress regulation through religion (“compensation pathway”). In the first case, believers are more likely to experience well-being; in the latter case, religion may serve as a protective factor in development. I also take into account possible negative effects of religion on adjustment. Finally, I discuss the cultural generalizability versus specificity of each of the central arguments in the chapter.

This chapter discusses why research on adolescent development will benefit from a focus on values and religion using a culture-sensitive approach. In the first part, the relations among culture, values, and religion in adolescent development are briefly summarized. The second part deals with the topic of adolescent values, and the third part addresses religion and religiosity. Each part discusses relevant research from a multidisciplinary perspective and highlights major issues, results, and gaps in sociological and psychological research. Finally, the theoretical and empirical contributions of this volume are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research in order to achieve a better understanding of adolescent development in a changing cultural context.

This chapter explores cultural and individual religious roots of adolescents’ family orientation on the basis of multilevel analyses with data from 17 cultural groups. Religion and the family are seen as intertwined social institutions. The family as a source of social support has been identified as an important mediator of the effects of religiosity on adolescent developmental outcomes. The results of the current study show that religiosity was related to different aspects of adolescents’ family orientation (traditional family values, value of children, and family future orientation), and that the culture-level effects of religiosity on family orientation were stronger than the individual-level effects. At the cultural level, socioeconomic development added to the effect of religiosity, indicating that societal affluence combined with nonreligious secular orientations is linked to a lower family orientation, especially with regard to traditional family values. The authors suggest that individual religiosity may be of special importance for adolescents’ family orientation in contexts where religiosity has lost some significance but religious traditions are still alive and can be (re-)connected to.

This chapter discusses why research on adolescent development will benefit from a focus on values and religion using a culture-sensitive approach. In the first part, the relations among culture, values, and religion in adolescent development are briefly summarized. The second part deals with the topic of adolescent values, and the third part addresses religion and religiosity. Each part discusses relevant research from a multidisciplinary perspective and highlights major issues, results, and gaps in sociological and psychological research. Finally, the theoretical and empirical contributions of this volume are discussed, and suggestions are made for future research in order to achieve a better understanding of adolescent development in a changing cultural context.

This chapter briefly reviews the nature of ten basic values recognized in cultures around the world that influence attitudes and behavior in all societies. Using data on Protestant, Roman Catholic, Muslim, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish, and no religion samples of adolescents and adults from representative national samples from 30 countries, it addresses questions important for understanding the development of adolescents’ values and the relations of their values to religion. Research reveals that, by mid-adolescence, the dynamic structure of conflicts and compatibilities that gives coherence to adult value systems has already developed. Moreover, this holds in all six religion groups. Thus, the structure of relations among the ten basic values is largely a function of universal developmental processes rather than of socialization into particular religions. Adolescents understand and organize the ten basic values in ways similar to adults, but their value priorities differ from those of adults. Adolescents accord substantially less importance than adults do to all of the other-oriented values. They are less concerned than adults with promoting the welfare of members of their in-group (benevolence) and of the wider society (universalism) and with avoiding change or uncertainty (security, conformity, and tradition). On the other hand, adolescents give higher priority than adults to self-enhancing values (achievement and power) and to values that encourage the pursuit of excitement (stimulation) and pleasure (hedonism). Values that emphasize autonomy (self-direction) peak in late-adolescence and remain very important until the mid-30s before declining thereafter. The chapter discusses aspects of development and socialization that can account for these near universal trends and for small changes in value priorities that occur between mid- and late-adolescence. Do more and less religious adolescents differ in their value priorities? The chapter reports that, strikingly, very similar patterns emerge regardless of religion. Religiosity relates most positively to tradition values, positively to conformity values, negatively to self-direction, stimulation, and power values, and most negatively to hedonism and stimulation values. These findings suggest that differences in religiosity among adolescents are largely a product of adolescents’ choices about how religious they should be based on their individual value priorities. Socialization and teaching within particular religions plays a smaller role. We consider values and religiosity to be important because we assume that they influence significant attitudes and behavior. The chapter examines how adolescents’ basic values and/or their religiosity influence the centrality of family in their lives, the importance of helping needy people, and the importance of always obeying the law. Analyses reveal that adolescents’ individual value priorities have a much stronger influence on these attitudes than their degree of religiosity does. Finally, the chapter examines processes of value acquisition that affect parent–adolescent value similarity, using data from Israeli adolescents. It notes that what may appear to be parental value transmission actually involves active value acquisition by adolescents. Exposure to parents’ social circles and parental warmth and responsiveness increase value similarity by contributing to accurate perception of parents’ socialization values and/or acceptance of these values, whereas autocratic and indifferent parenting and love withdrawal undermine similarity in Western cultures.