Shame and wrong: Is there a common morality among young people in france, the uk, the netherlands, germany, and the usa?

Abstract

It is commonly believed that shared ideas about what is good and bad, right or wrong, worthy or unworthy will bind the members of society together and create a cohesive and vibrant society (Hitlin & Vaisey, 2013). In today’s globalized world, the growing flow of people across borders has created societies that are less homogeneous, more culturally diverse, more fragmented, and less socially integrated. Increasingly we see that politicians blame “moral decay” or “moral decline” for such social ills as crime, drug addiction, and whatever else ails society. This manifests itself most clearly in the Western world, with the flows of migrants from the Global South to the North, introducing large numbers of migrants and refugees from societies with different cultural, ethnic, religious, or political norms and values. In countries like Germany, France, the Netherlands, and to a lesser degree the UK and the USA, Muslim immigrants in particular are viewed as representing different moral codes. We see it as an important task for social scientists to challenge or confirm taken-for-granted assumptions about differences between migrant youth and their native counterparts, using objective, data-driven analyses. It is one of the goals of the current chapter to empirically describe differences in the values and norms of native-born children and their migrant counterparts in France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and the USA.