The importance of education on youth development is no stranger to most. School is seen as the institution that provides youth with the skills needed to contribute to a working society, allowing them to develop not only academic knowledge but also moral and social values outside the domestic sphere. Throughout this path, I explore the effects of education on youth in various East Asian nations in the late-capitalist age. I begin the path with the idea of the commodification of the intellectual, or quite possibly the global intellectual, for success in the global capitalist economy. For several East Asian countries – for example, China, South Korea, and Japan – formal higher education is seen as the most direct path to economic stability and success, and the pressures resulting from this view shape the way youth both prioritize their self-development and form relationships with their peers. However, I also explore some of the alternative routes taken by those unable to follow the ideal path. Those alternatives further add complexity to the ways in which youth are seen to transition into adulthood, and in some cases, youth that deviate from this standard path prompt a moral panic that, in the eyes of parental figures and political institutions, is in need of remedy. Thus, throughout this discussion, I attempt to illustrate the complex relationship between education and youth culture development, as education presents both a cause and a solution to youth labeled as a site of crisis.

Begin this path

1. Commodification of the Intellectual on Neoliberal Youth Development
2. Cram Schools and the Social Space of Competition
3. Alternatives to the Ideal Path: Precarious Labor for Chinese Migrants
4. Educational Pressures: Ijime, Truancy, and the Rise of Suicide
5. Conclusions: Gakkyuu Houkai and the Moral Panic of Education

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