The conflicted individualism of Japanese college student volunteers.

This article examines how Japanese college students' motivation to volunteer reflects tension between public, relational and private identities in contemporary Japan. The article first explores the students' diverse motivations to become volunteers in a country where volunteering has not been a widespread social phenomenon, particularly among college students. It argues that Japanese college student volunteers are not primarily motivated to volunteer in order to strengthen Japanese communities or to help solve or alleviate contemporary social problems, despite discourse by both the state and civil society proponents that encourage, for different reasons, these kinds of motivations. Instead, many volunteers offer more individualistic and personal motivations to volunteer, such as the opportunity for self-discovery or the opportunity to make diverse friendships. This is often mediated, however, by the strong attachments volunteers often form with those they help and social conventions that stress the importance of relational bonds. However, their role as college students, in a liminal period lacking in strong institutional attachment in an increasingly individualistic contemporary Japan, leads them to place precedence on their own personal growth and individual interests. The opposition and integration of these two competing motivations help explain the uncertainty and ambiguity of their motivations to volunteer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]