So very many teach introductions to East Asia under different disciplines, including the Humanities, Sociology, Economics, History, and Religious Studies, but what makes this work so promising is its transferability across these lines of demarcation for the student engaged in her first serious study of the region. Neuman's fine overview addresses the recurring cultural tasks across East Asia from family, to school and work, and socio-economic stratifications. Neuman has written an ideal introductory text with a sociologist's clarity, a humanist's learning, a researcher's sharp eye, and a teacher's fine sense of proportion. This is the only intellectual guidebook you will need to take with you for your voyage to East Asia.

While the balance between private and public sectors are based primarily on the experiences of the wealthy societies in Western Europe and North America, the global reach and increased political weight of East Asian economies is bound to influence other societies as well. Contemporary Social Issues in East Asian Societies: Examining the Spectrum of Public and Private Spheres focuses on modern highly developed East Asian societies and their social issues, particularly ones that are related to family, institution, and health. By examining the modernized global society and its connectedness, this book is a vital resource for researchers, students, and academicians interested in the distinctive features connected with local, social and cultural traditions of East Asian society.

Religious culture is an important keyword for understanding rapidly changing East Asian society, especially China, Japan, and Korea. Despite the common influence of Confucian culture on these countries, each has shown a very different pattern of social progress in modern and postmodern times. Although surveys report a low ratio of religious identification and membership in this region, people in this area are religious in a different way from Western societies, and religious culture is closely related to political, economic, and social subsystems. A real force of changing East Asian society is not only political powers or economic classes, but also an invisible culture based on religious belief and practice. This book focuses on the dynamic relationship between social progress and religious culture, organization, or movements in each society since 1945.

As Asia faces the challenges posed by the ‘knowledge economy’, its schools take on a new and different importance. This book outlines the policy contexts in which these transformations are taking place and the practical strategies that are needed.

The ebook edition of this title is Open Access and freely available to read online. Revising established research, this handbook equips readers with an understanding of the complex interplay between local and global and public and private contexts in the development of young people in Asian countries.

New perspectives on the past and present contributions of the 25 million strong Chinese diaspora in Southeast Asia to the development of contemporary society. Case studies feature organisational, community, religious, and other arenas of Chinese activity and identity definition, and the book analyses the interplay of local, regional, global and transnational networks and identities.

Social cohesion has become an important public goal in many countries across the globe, not only in the Western hemisphere, but also in Asia. Despite the growing political and academic interest in the concept, there is no generally accepted definition of social cohesion. As a result, empirical insights are lacking. Against this backdrop, the Bertelsmann Stiftung has initiated the "Social Cohesion Radar" which now, for the first time, presents empirical findings on South, Southeast and East Asia. The study provides an analysis and review of social cohesion in 22 Asian countries in a comparative perspective. It presents a valid and reliable measurement of current and past levels of social cohesion and explores its most important determinants and outcomes. As an extension of the Social Cohesion Radar series the study will be of interest and value to policy makers, academics, think tanks and civil society organizations.