Young people's views on distributive justice, rights, and obligations: a cross-cultural study

This article is based! on a cross-cultural research project: 'Adolescents' interpretation Of the social contract', in which values of young people in seven nations are comparing. The goal of the project is to understand how a dolescents across different nations interpret 'the social contact', that is their concepts of the relationships between individuals and society. Young people today grow up in a harsh world they increasingly expected to rely o n themselves, and seem to be oriented more towards their own self-achieveme nt than to broader social commitments. The article uses the evidence from a range of countries to highlight young people's opinions and views about di stributive justice and public politics. These could be interpreted as a ref lection of contemporary waves of liberalism and market ethics, but also as an expression of a collapse and shift of traditional social contracts betwe en individuals and societies. It is argued that political stability may be undermined if the trend towards individualisation in post-modem societies e rodes the networks of community connections and trust, which are the cement of a strong civil society.