Britain and Japan study how to stop the bullies

By William Hollingworth
Japan Today (Kyodo News)
December 5, 2007
Source: http://www.japantoday.com/jp/feature/1311

LONDON — The nature of school bullying differs in Britain and Japan but both countries can learn from each other in countering the problem, according to academics and other experts.

A team of academics sponsored by Japan's education ministry was in Britain recently looking at how the issue is dealt with by schools using the "peer support" scheme.

Japan is particularly anxious to get a grip on bullying at schools given the fact that it has led to periodic waves of suicides over the years and a high percentage of children skip school as a result.

Over the last few years, both Britain and Japan have been at the forefront of the "peer support" movement, in which school children themselves try and assist their fellow pupils who are suffering from bullying and other social problems using a variety of techniques. These include mentoring, mediating, tutoring and befriending.

Experts realized kids could open up more to their peers, and other children were perhaps better placed to resolve the conflict. This method has proved to be successful in both countries, according to surveys.

Tokuhiro Ikejima, a clinical psychologist from Nara University of Education, who led the Japanese team, has been examining British anti-bullying techniques.

Speaking through an interpreter after a seminar at the Daiwa Anglo-Japanese Foundation, he said, "In Japan, bullying tends to happen between very close friends, and the situation is often worsened because bystanders do not try and intervene. The bullying often takes the form of social exclusion rather than violence.

"We therefore need to look at how to improve children's inter-relationships. In England, the bullying differs in that it involves more violence and tends not to be among close friends," Ikejima said. "We can learn from Britain's techniques in mediation and befriending."

"Peer support" is now used in nearly half of all Britain's schools but is thought to be less widespread in Japan.

Helen Cowie, director of the U.K. Observatory for the Promotion of Non-Violence at Surrey University, said there were a lot of British schools that can learn from practices in Japan.

Cowie, who has visited Japan on several occasions, particularly likes the "Q & A" approach where the victim can reply to a series of questions in writing and the advice from the student counselor is then circulated in a school newsletter.

This method protects anonymity and avoids children having to actually meet someone to discuss their problems which can often add to the trauma. It is similar to an agony aunt column in a newspaper or magazine, and Cowie believes the "Q & A" approach can be used on the Internet.

She also feels there is a lot Britain can learn from the importance of the group in Japanese society and the way people within those communities help each other.

She says she believes Japan's "peer support" system is well developed already, but could perhaps learn from the "checkpoints" she gives to schools. This is basically a list of tasks that teachers and pupils should try and complete in order to create a more harmonious school environment. The "checkpoints" have already been translated into Japanese.

Cowie said that "peer support" has developed over the years from being predominantly one-on-one counseling in a special room to creating friendly and supportive "communities" in school and also on the Internet. This includes pupil-led bodies which are consulted by teachers on issues affecting the school.

Her only note of caution is that Japan's traditional tendency toward creating hierarchical systems could make it harder when forming these consultative bodies.

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December 5, 2007