CONCEPTS OF DEVIANCE IN CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS - THE CASE OF JAPAN

This paper reviews the theoretical, clinical, and empirical literature on three forms of deviance in Japan: bullying, school refusal, and ch ildren's violence against parents. These behaviors are among the most widely discussed and extensively researched behavioral problems of chi ldren and adolescents in Japan today, yet they occur with relatively l ow frequency compared with other industrialized nations This paper ana lyzes the relationship among Japanese child-rearing goals, traditional values, interpersonal dynamics, and concepts of deviance in children and adolescents and explores the emergence of these expressions of dev iant behavior as major social problems in Japan. Application of this t ype of sociocultural-psychological analysis to the study of deviance i n American society is considered.