Values and Social Change In Asia and Beyond In Comparative Perspective (2)

This panel features 6 papers that employ comparative public opinion research data from the World Values Survey and national value studies to examine how everyday moral and social values and orientations are reshaped across Asia (and beyond) in contemporary times of dynamic change. The panel centers on a broader research question: how do large-scale social transformations become visible in people’s values, and why do societies undergoing similar changes often produce different cultural patterns? Asia offers a particularly important setting for this discussion. Rapid economic development, expansion of educational, urbanization, demographic changes, migration flows and digital communications are among the multiple factors that keep transforming social life. However, they have not produced a uniform model of cultural change. Instead, available comparative survey evidence points to uneven patterns: continuity of traditional values may coexist with liberalization, individual aspiration with collective obligation, and secular institutions with persistent moral or religious frameworks. The panel unites papers that use WVS and national value survey data to examine these patterns empirically, theoretically, and methodologically. Contributions from Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Japan, South Korea and other Asian countries address value change in cross-national comparison, including aspects such as generational change, cultural persistence, measurement equivalence, and the limits of theories of modernization.
Keywords: Asia; social values; cultural change; modernization; comparative sociology; intergenerational change; value transformation; globalization.