A Study on Views of Adolescence in Modern Japan: Using as an Example the Problem of Smoking by Schoolboys

Uses the problem of adolescent smoking in the middle Meiji era as an example of adolescent deviance in a discussion of the social & structural meanings of adolescence in modern Japan. Areas not considered include: (1) the relationship between the middle Meiji concept of schoolboy & subsequent concepts of adolescence, & (2) the relationship between that concept of schoolboy & traditional norms pertaining to adulthood. Adolescent deviance (eg, smoking) is used as a representative form of differentiation between adulthood & nonadulthood. The development of the smoking problem is traced, & it is concluded that modernization & the establishment & institutionalization of schooling changed traditional norms of adulthood in ways that marked the schoolboy as nonadult. Adapted from the source document.