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 compared. The goal of the project is to understand how adolescents across different nations interpret ‘the social contract‘, that is their concepts of the relationships between individuals and society. Young people today grow up in a harsh world where they are increasingly expected to rely on themsleves, and seem to be oriented more towards their own self‐achievement than to broader social commitments. The article uses the evidence from a range of countries to highlight young people’s opinions and views about distributive justice and public politics. These could be interpreted as a reflection of contemporary waves of liberalism and market ethics, but also as an expression of a collapse and shift of traditional social contracts between individuals and societies. It is argued that political stability may be undermined if the trend towards individualisation in post‐modern societies erodes the networks of community connections and trust, which are the cement of a strong civil society.