An Empirical Study of Globalization and National Identity in Japan

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

An outline of the findings of the study is as follows :During the first year, both in Japan and the United States, sources and resources, including data related to the project theme, were collected. As one result, it was found that in Japan people perceive globalization as passive while in the United States people perceive it merely as the status quo.As a result of a secondary analysis of existing data which was collected during the first year, existing theories, such as those of R.Robertson, A.Smith and N.Luhmann, regarding globalization and national identity were partially supported.For the second year, based on the results of the pretest survey of pairings between parents and their respective high school students, which had been conducted during the previous year, two nation-wide surveys were conducted using the two-stage stratified random sampling and face- to-face personal interview methods. The first survey was conducted among youth between 15 and 17 years of age and their parent … More s (1,400 respondents, 700 pairs) as well as among 2,000 adults over 20 years of age. The second survey was carried out among 2,400 adults over 20 years of age.Parents and their respective children did not differ significantly in their attitudes toward the issues related to globalization and national identity. Also, in comparing the younger and older respondents, the older respondents had more traditional ways of thinking and maintained a relatively high degree of national identity. To the contrary, the younger respondents tended to perceive society and the world more globally and in a more modern approach.Let us classify the two concepts into four combinations, NG, Ng, nG, and ng, where n = a low degree of national identity ; N = a high degree of national identity ; g = a low degree of globalization ; and G = a high degree of globalization.Our findings indicated that the ratio of ng is the highest, followed by Ng, nG, and NG. This indicates that so far as social values are concerned, Japan still exhibits a traditional way of thinking among all age groups ; that it is has not progressed rapidly on general issues which relate to globalization and national identity. However, for some issues, such as foreign language usage, attitudes toward family and sex roles, environmental issues and attitudes toward work and the work ethic, we can see a relatively high degree of globalization.In addition to the surveys which we conducted, to discuss and exchange ideas and obtain information regarding our project from a cross-national perspective, four of our research team members visited experts in the field in Australia, China, and Germany during the first and the second years of the project. The third year was spent reporting on the results of our research. Less