Experience of entry into the workforce varies across societies (each offering a particular set of social conditions), and across social groups within a society. This article examines how urban Japanese working-class girls made sense of their first permanent full-time employment and conceived the transition to adulthood over the period 1989-92.…

"Illiterates" are those who have not learned to write in any language. This is the definition on which American and most foreign statistics of illiteracy are based, because the percentage of those who can read but can not write is so small that it may be ignored. The test of writing one's name and ordinary words is simple, easily…