Juvenile Delinquency in Japan: Reconsidering the

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN

BRILL’S JAPANESE STUDIES LIBRARY edited by H. BOLITHO AND K.W. RADTKE

VOLUME 18

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN Reconsidering the “Crisis” EDITED BY

GESINE FOLJANTY-JOST

BRILL LEIDEN • BOSTON 2003

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Juvenile delinquency in Japan : reconsidering the “crisis” / edited by Gesine Foljanty-Jost. p. cm. – (Brill’s Japanese studies library, ISSN 0925-6512 ; v. 18) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 90-04-13253-8 (alk. paper) 1. Juvenile delinquency—Japan. 2. Juvenile delinquency—Japan—Prevention. I. Foljanty-Jost, Gesine. II. Series. HV9207.A5I88 2003 364.36’0952–dc21 2003052253

ISSN 0925-6512 ISBN 90 04 13253 8 © Copyright 2003 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Brill provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910 Danvers MA 01923, USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands

CONTENTS

Introduction ...................................................................................... Gesine Foljanty-Jost

vii

Juvenile Delinquency in Japan—Reconsidering the “Crisis”......... Gesine Foljanty-Jost/Manuel Metzler

1

The “Japanese Triangle” for Preventing Adolescent Delinquency—Strengths and Weaknesses of the Family-School Adolescent Relationship from a Comparative Perspective............. Toyama-Bialke, Chisaki Youth in Crisis: Public Perceptions and Discourse on Deviance and Juvenile Problem Behavior in Japan........................................ Annette Erbe Changes in Values and Life Orientation among Japanese Youth... Kadowaki, Atsushi Changes in School Environment and Deviancy—A Survey Analysis and an Intervention Program for Schools......................... Taki, Mitsuru Repression of Deviancy as a Reason for New Deviancy................ Tokuoka, Hideo Inequality in Family Background as a Reason for Juvenile Delinquency...................................................................................... Yonekawa, Shigenobu Youth Deviant Behaviour, Conflict, and Later Consequences: Comparison of Working and Middle Class Communities in Japan ............................................................................................. Robert S. Yoder The Reform of the Japanese Education System as an Answer to Delinquency...................................................................................... Fujita, Hidenori

19

51 75

91 103

115

129

143

vi

CONTENTS

The Debate about the Reform of the Juvenile Law in Japan ......... Christian Schwarzenegger

173

Counseling Systems as a Means of Preventing Delinquency ......... Nakano, Yoshiaki

199

The Revival of Local Networks for Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency...................................................................................... Minei, Masaya

211

The Juvenile Training Schools of Japan—Teaching Young Serious Offenders How to Live and “How to Be”.......................... Anne Metzler

221

Problem Behavior and Social Control in Japan’s Junior High Schools.............................................................................................. Manuel Metzler/Gesine Foljanty-Jost

253

List of Contributors ..........................................................................

267

Index .................................................................................................

269

INTRODUCTION Gesine Foljanty-Jost Juvenile violence was one of the most urgent problems in many countries during the nineties. While in Germany it was violence against people of a non-German cultural background that caused deep concern in society, in the US the public became alarmed by news about weapons at schools. In Great Britain the appearance of hooligans during football games was an issue of public debate and even in Japan, which is known for its well-integrated youth, an increase in bullying and violence at schools was reported. This volume presents an inside view of the Japanese debate carried out by prominent Japanese social scientists on issues involving sociology, psychology, and education. Articles written by experts from Germany and Switzerland supplement this debate, offering an outside perspective. All the articles present research results on the causes of juvenile delinquency in Japan during the nineties and discuss aspects of how Japanese society deals with the problem behavior of its youth. The introductory article by Gesine FOLJANTY-J OST and Manuel M ETZLER demonstrates that, especially in comparison to Germany, the problem of violence in Japanese schools seems to be highly overestimated within Japanese public opinion. They stress that, contrary to what the mass media suggests, problem behavior among young people is not a new phenomenon; that young Japanese junior high schools have not become more brutal and that the number of violent cases is about 10 times lower than in Germany. Chisaki TOYAMA -BIALKE offers an explanation for the low deviancy rate in Japan, suggesting that the low crime rate is linked with Japanese behavior towards children. According to her, education and socialization in Japan is characterized by emotional bonds in human relations in which adult norms and values are transmitted to youngsters. Young people strive to conform to adult norms and values so intensely that they are acutely sensitive to any kind of deviancy. The next article, “Public Perceptions and Discourse on Deviance and Juvenile Problem Behavior” by Annette E RBE , shares this view. Erbe’s analysis supports the view of FOLJANTY-J OST and METZLER

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GESINE FOLJANTY-JOST

that general, deep concern among the public in regard to juvenile deviancy is often unrelated to statistical ups and downs. She concludes that the theme of youth in crisis seems to lend itself to emphasizing and legitimizing all sorts of otherwise contested claims. The contributions of Hideo TOKUOKA, Shigenobu YONEKAWA and Robert S. YODER all deal with the background of juvenile problem behavior. They share the view that society and conditions in the living environment are the main reasons for delinquency. TOKUOKA employs the term moral panic, coined by Stanley Cohen, to circumscribe his view that juvenile delinquency in Japan is the mere result of labeling young people as deviant, enforcing control and thereby provoking new waves of delinquency. Y ODER also supports this theory that delinquency results from the labeling of juveniles as delinquent. He presents his ethnographic fieldwork on deviant youth behavior and two follow-up studies in two suburbs of Tokyo. By applying conflict-labeling theory, he argues that juveniles in working-class communities, unlike those in middle-class communities, are confronted with stringent and stigmatized delinquent controls that pave the way for social reproduction of class when these youngsters become young adults. Similarly, YONEKAWA argues that social inequality is one important reason that young people become delinquent. He demonstrates that out of all offenders of juvenile law, a higher than average proportion are young people with low educational performance, with parents of low educational background and low educational aspirations. They are the young people who do not have good job prospects and tend to drop out of school. By applying anomie theory, YONEKAWA is not far from TOKUOKA and YODER, who argue that both the reaction of society and the unequal opportunities that society offers young people are reasons for juvenile delinquency, even though all of them agree that the rate of incidence is not alarming. With this view, they differ from Atsushi KADOWAKI and Mitsuru TAKI, who claim that a lack of social competence on the part of young students is responsible for their becoming deviant. KADOWAKI bases his argument on three surveys of value change among Japanese juveniles between 1976 and 2000. He demonstrates that the so-called apathetic type as well as the non-confrontational type is increasing among young people in Japan. He stresses that apathy and resignation characterize interpersonal relationships among the young generation.

INTRODUCTION

ix

His view that Japanese young people lack social competence is shared by TAKI, who presents the results of case studies that show that children in Japan have changed in that they are less concerned with others. His data show that children feel intensive stress through personal interaction with others, especially with peers. Since he demonstrates a strong correlation between stress, the stressor and problem behavior, he presents the Japanese Peers Support Program as a means of helping children to develop social abilities in order to avoid deviant behavior. The goal of this program is to compensate for missing experiences with peer groups by offering “skills training” and by reconstructing traditional Japanese activities for children to offer the children a sense of the effectiveness of such interaction with peers. The articles by Christian SCHWARZENEGGER , Hidenori F UJITA , Yoshiaki NAKANO, Masaya M INEI , Anne M ETZLER , and the one by Manuel METZLER and Gesine FOLJANTY-JOST deal with the reaction to and prevention of juvenile deviant behavior. SCHWARZENEGGER discusses the legal reactions to juvenile delinquency. He argues that although the rhetoric of Japanese juvenile law has become stricter, its general approach remains what it was before: reintegrative and unreliant on punishment only. FUJITA discusses in his paper the implications of recent educational reforms aimed at the prevention of deviancy. He offers a critical evaluation of the reforms with regard to their ability to respond to the so-called “disruption of classes”. He agrees with FOLJANTYJOST/METZLER and E RBE that problem behavior in Japan is overestimated and functionalized for other ends and purposes, even by policymakers. He calls for genuine reform of school education with the participation of the local community and families. NAKANO and MINEI also refer to education reform and discuss perspectives on the prevention of juvenile deviancy in the future. NAKANO introduces prevention programs already in operation in some local communities in Tokyo that explicitly rely on cooperation between schools, parents and the local community, even though the school as a “caring community” continues to play the most important role in education and therapy. MINEI shares the view that the local cooperation of parents, schools and the community is the most important aspect toward the creation of deviancy-free schools. He reports on the experiences of a newly created “Educational Conference” in Kawasaki City, which brings to-

x

GESINE FOLJANTY-JOST

gether various members of the local community for educational engagement. Anne METZLER supplements the contributions on prevention with an article on reintegration practices for juvenile delinquents through re-education. She describes the reintegration procedures as harsh and rigid, but she makes clear that the efficiency of the system is undeniable: the number of those youngsters who return to delinquency after re-education is remarkably low. In the final article, M. METZLER and FOLJANTY-JOST present partial results of the Halle research project on deviancy and conformity among Japanese junior high school students. They point out that the intense and broad scope of control over and correction measures for juvenile behavior are typical of prevention activities at Japanese schools, and this is largely unrelated to the degree of deviancy that takes place. They argue that the high sensitivity towards any kind of rule-breaking in Japanese society paves the way for legitimizing all sorts of control at a very early stage, that is, long before violence or other forms of severe deviancy take place. High sensitivity therefore might be considered a kind of prevention strategy in itself and could explain low rates of delinquency. All contributions to the volume were subject to a broad GermanJapanese debate during the third symposium on juvenile delinquency in both countries held from June 7 to 9, 2001 at the Institute for Japanese Studies at Martin Luther University in Halle. The symposium and the preparation of this volume have both been generously supported by the Volkswagen Foundation, to which we feel deeply indebted. Annette Erbe helped with the editing work, and Simone Barth did a lot of coordinating. Thanks to both of them. Japanese terms have been transcribed using the Hepburn system with lengthened vowels indicated by a circumflex. Japanese personal names have been given in the Japanese order of family name followed by personal name. In order to make this more clearly; the family names of all contributors to this volume have been rendered in uppercase letters.

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN: RECONSIDERING THE “CRISIS” Gesine Foljanty-Jost and Manuel Metzler Since the mid-1990s Japanese society has become deeply concerned about the situation at schools, namely deviancy and delinquency among students following a number of horrific cases of violence against teachers and classmates. The mass media, social scientists and state officials have cited these tendencies: 1. A dramatic increase in juvenile crime 2. An increase in homicide and other forms of violence including bullying both inside and outside of schools 3. An increase in juveniles who explosively become violent without clear motivation (kireru) 4. An increase in juvenile drug abuse In order to describe the general situation at schools the term gakkyû hôkai or the “disruption of classes” has been created, indicating that juvenile deviancy has developed a new feature compared with previous years. The term implies that beyond violence and crime, a general breakdown of class discipline, a loss of values, and a lack of social competence are ruling daily life in schools. The description of the situation indicates that we have to deal with two areas of problem behavior that are usually discussed separately: juvenile crime, which we will refer to as delinquency, and problem behavior at schools without juridical consequences, which we will refer to as deviancy. Both are integrated in public discourse because the increasing problem behavior at schools may indicate rising juvenile criminal offenses in the future. The Japanese discussion of the matter indicates that in the case of juvenile crime, a significant relationship can be drawn between low academic performance, low socio-economic background and problem behavior (see Yonekawa in this volume). In the cases of juveniles becoming deviant at school, it has been stressed that most of them have a “sound” family background, which means that they live with

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GESINE FOLJANTY-JOST/MANUEL METZLER

both parents, of whom at least one earns money (Hayami 1989: 109–128, Mori 1999: 60–64). Taki has furthermore stressed that since the 1970s, problem behavior and delinquency of young students has become an individual act that is no longer integrated with group activism. In contrast to previous years, no specific motivation for becoming violent can be identified; students are mostly reacting spontaneously and only in their own individual interest. Becoming violent is no longer in any case related to low academic performance, as students with high scores become violent as well (Taki 1998). In cases of frustration, they react explosively (kireru) without any sensitivity towards other people and without any signs of warning. Taki argues that kids reach a point where they cannot tolerate frustration, and they lack the social competence to deal with conflicts or frustration (Taki in this volume). The mainstream argument in literature concerning juvenile delinquency is that in the 1990s, unlike in past decades, any child could become deviant and deviancy appears in various forms such as bullying, absence from school, sexual misconduct, drug abuse, violence, and so forth. The Ministry of Justice uses the term “generalization” (ippanka) to emphasize this dramatic situation according to which today every child without regard of social background or educational performance could or even will become deviant (Hômushô Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho 1998: 421). As for reasons for the new phenomenon of deviancy, we can differentiate between three basic approaches. The first approach focuses on general changes in society such as the “privatization” of society (Morita 1997), according to which young people today care only about themselves and neglect the needs of other people and society. The second approach concentrates on the family, stressing that the educational competence of today’s family is diminishing and fails to instill a proper value consciousness in children (Fukaya 1997). The third approach claims that the school system, namely the organization of Japanese junior high schools, is the cause of students deviancy, since schools exert high pressure on students through examinations, excessive regulations and control. While the second approach is dominant in research on juvenile crime, the critics of schools as responsible for deviancy can mainly be found among sociologists and experts in the field of education. In summary, the issue of violence, bullying, and problem behavior is regarded with pessimism among mass media commentators, aca-

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN

3

demics, educators and public institutions such as the police and schools in Japan. They share deep concerns about their “children in crisis”1 (kodomo ga abunai), claiming that the control of juvenile behavior has broken down and that a whole generation regardless of age, gender, social background or academic performance is in danger of disintegration due to failures in teaching the values of society.

1. What is the Nature of the Problem? Reconsidering Delinquency in Japan From the perspective of a foreigner, the Japanese debate on the crisis of juveniles merits examination in at least in two respects: 1. The first question is whether the high level of awareness of the problem reflects the actual situation. The mass media tend to dramatize and generalize particular cases of delinquency, but there is no empirical research available concerning the decline of conformity among school children with the exception of data on violence and bullying. 2. The second question focuses on what the consequences of problem perception are. Japan is known as gakureki shakai or an “meritocratic society” in which educational success is of extreme relevance to further career opportunities; the commitment of parents, teachers, and the general public to educating children is extremely high. Because of the high sensitivity with regard to all issues concerning child rearing and education, we expect a correlation between a high degree of concern towards children in general and major efforts to prevent deviancy and dense control mechanisms. The public sense of crisis should therefore not be assumed to be accurate. Since the understanding of perception of the problem depends deeply both on an understanding of the definitions of deviancy in a given society and on reliable data, this paper will explore the preconditions of the pessimistic view on juveniles in Japan2. We will first examine exactly how deviance is defined in Japan and what the respective juridical formulas mean. Second, we will explore the actual 1

The term has been coined by the journal Aera published by Asahi in November 1997. 2 The paper presents parts of the findings of the research project mentioned in the introduction of this volume.

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GESINE FOLJANTY-JOST/MANUEL METZLER

situation of juvenile problem behavior by reviewing data from public institutions, distinguishing between juvenile crime and deviant behavior at schools. Our findings will demonstrate a discrepancy between the real situation of student deviant behavior in junior high schools and the public debate on it. The intensity of the feeling of crisis in the Japanese public does not suit the low level of problem behavior. The consequences of this discrepancy for the conceptualization of social control in schools and their preventative activities will be discussed in the Metzler and Foljanty-Jost chapter (“Problem Behavior and Social Control in Japan’s Junior High Schools”) in this volume.

2. How to Define Delinquency: Reconsidering Definitions As far as definitions are concerned, we have to take into account that deviancy is not a universal category, but depends on factors such as culture, time, gender, age, and so forth This means that children are not deviant per se but are labeled as deviant according to the definitions of what is regarded as deviant in their society. Definitions influence problem perception, data collecting, and counter-measures for prevention. We may distinguish between various levels in society where norms and deviancy are defined. Besides the general norms being defined by the family, the neighborhood and the social environment, juveniles are confronted with legal norms, formulated in the Juvenile Law (shônenhô) and norms as defined by schools. Since almost all Japanese between six and eighteen attend school nearly all day, we expect the influence of schools in inducing conformity is especially high. Rules of what is right and what is wrong as defined by schools represent the concentration of norms, which are commonly shared by society and those which are involved in education. Due to a highly centralized education system and a strong middle-class orientation among the majority in Japanese society, we may expect that the norms juveniles are taught are uniform and homogenous for all children of the same age group. Reconsideration of the norms as defined by law and by schools shows the following results: With regard to norms defined by the Juvenile Law of 1949, there is a high level of conformity between Germany and Japan. This can be

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN

5

explained by the strong influence German law had on the formulation of Japanese Juvenile Law (Kühne/Miyazawa 1979). In both countries delinquent juveniles are defined as those who are suspected of having violated criminal stipulations. These include homicide, rape, drug abuse, theft and so on. The definitions do not not differ significantly between the two countries. The Japanese special law against the reckless driving of motorcycle gangs (bôsôzoku) is a formal exception. Japanese as well as German or American law reserves a specific category for juveniles who have not yet become delinquent, but show a tendency towards it. This behavior is called guhan in Japan, being similar to the “status offenses” in the US. These include missing school, hanging around in public or with friends who might lead them into delinquency and so on (Metzler/Metzler 2000: 134–139). Below this surface, differences begin to appear. In Japan, police regulations exist which define the furyô kôi (“bad behavior”). The usage of terms such as “furyô” (bad) in official sources along with terms such as “unhealthy fun”, and “immoral contact with others” do not exist in official German sources and indicate a moralistic approach towards juvenile behavior, while in Germany terms such as “harmful tendencies” (schädliche Neigungen) in legal or sociological sources have been strongly criticized because of their moralistic connotations. (Brunner/Dölling 1996, Albrecht 1993). According to these regulations, Japanese youth should not hang around in bars, game centers or pachinko parlors, should avoid “dangerous” friends, should not watch pornographic movies or videos, and should not drink alcohol or smoke tobacco. All young people under the age of twenty are targets of these regulations. This basically corresponds to the German “Juvenile Public Protection Law” of 1985 (Gesetz zum Schutze der Jugend in der Öffentlichkeit). In Japan, however, the definitions are clearly stricter. To offer the most explicit example: German juveniles may drink distilled alcohol such as whisky at eighteen years of age. They may drink beer or wine at 16. They may drink beer or wine even when they are not yet sixteen if their parents or a guardian accompany them (section 4). They may smoke tobacco at sixteen (section 9). The Japanese police simplify things: alcohol and tobacco are forbidden until twenty years of age. We therefore may conclude that the responsibility for oneself among juveniles is expected to start later in Japan, where juveniles up to the age of twenty are regarded more or less as children who have to be protected.

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GESINE FOLJANTY-JOST/MANUEL METZLER

This logic continues as we follow the definitions under the legal stipulations. School is the most important institution defining norms for all children. On the most formal level, schools follow the Ministry of Education in distinguishing between three types of deviancy at school: according to legal definitions, schools should report violence (bôryoku kôi), bullying (ijime) and absence from school (futôkô) to the local boards of education. The ministry defines bullying as various forms of continuous aggressive behavior of a group of students towards a single one (see Morita 1997: 85). For absence from school, the definition implies not attending school for more than thirty days during compulsory education. Until 1990, more than fifty days were taken into account. Below this level of official definitions, schools may define their specific rules in school regulations (kôsoku). Regulations usually include rules concerning hairstyle, how time is spent after school, “junior high school student” behavior, along with more school-related rules. The power of definition granted to the schools is much broader than in Germany; the school is entrusted with the definition and the control of behavior even in those fields that are typically left in the hands of the family or the individual in Germany (Toyama-Bialke 1998). Figure 1: School Regulations of Aka Junior High School in Niigata Prefecture 1.

Concerning life outside school • It is forbidden to watch movies without parents with the exception of movies that are approved by the school. • It is forbidden to enter game centers. • It is forbidden to come to school by bicycle.

2.

Concerning school life • Breaks between the classes should be used for preparation for the next class.

3.

Outer appearance • Dying and perming hair are forbidden. • Boys should have their hair shorter than the eyebrows and the ears. • Girls should bind their hair if longer than the shoulders.

Source: Aka Junior High School’s education plan (school’s name altered)

JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN

7

To sum up, at the most formal level of legal definitions we can not find any differences between Japan and Germany. In semi-juridical regulations and stipulations, definitions tend to be stricter in Japan. And below this level, the Japanese reaction to juvenile deviancy is clearly more restrictive than the German one.

3. Reconsidering the Crisis of Japanese Youth: a Review of Data In terms of available empirical data, we have to distinguish between official data provided by public agencies on the one hand and academic research on the other (Morita 1994, Taki 1996, Metzler, A. 1999). Most detailed data concerning the delinquency and deviant behavior of juveniles are collected and published annually by the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Education and related public institutions. The data draw on identical definitions and are available for all public schools, unlike in Germany. We therefore have a broad database for criminal offenses as well as for problem behavior at public schools. But even though there is no lack of data, it remains difficult to qualify the situation. Generally speaking, the reliability of data concerning problem behavior at schools and especially violent incidents is crucial, not only in Japan but in other countries as well. Data are available only for criminal offenses, which include violence and bullying at schools as well as absence from school, but not for breaking informal or moral norms, and it is these informal or moral norms that seem to influence the public’s current pessimistic view of junior high school students as heavily involved in violence and bullying. Data depend on the willingness of schools to cooperate with the administration and to report bad news about the school. It can be expected that schools are highly reluctant to call the police. But we do not have any reason to believe that the Japanese figures are less reliable than those of other countries (see Uchiyama 1995: 40–41). Like in every criminological research study in the world, figures not only vary according to the reporting behavior of teachers, citizens, and shopkeepers and so on (see Mori 1998: 72; for Germany see Albrecht, G. 1993: 502; Scholten/Siethoff 1986: 584–585), they also vary according to registration and calculation methods that are used.

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Data greatly depend on the attention that the agents of control (such as the police) pay towards juvenile crime. This is even more pronounced when the mass media get involved. Official data on problem behavior contain data only for public schools3. Private schools, which make up approximately 28% of all students in compulsory education, are therefore omitted. Definitions and methods of collecting data have changed over time, influencing the total numbers heavily. For instance, in the case of violence since 1997, the numbers include not only violence at school but outside of school as well. Until 1994 only school principals were allowed to report on bullying, but since then students and teachers have also been allowed to do so. Numbers have risen as a result, but this has had no impact on commentaries by critics and others, who use the data without taking into account the fact that definitions have been changed. We therefore have to keep in mind that official data on juvenile delinquency and problem behavior at schools are not reliable enough to describe reality. But similar methodological problems exist in other countries and official data are the only sources that have provided us with information for more than fifteen years about the distribution of the types of offenses and about the gender and age of the offenders. We therefore have decided to carefully use the official data of the police, the Family Court and the Ministry of Education in order to reexamine the empirical grounds of the purported juvenile crisis. Data for both offenses against juvenile law and deviancy were analyzed from three perspectives: 1. Actual states of deviancy with regard to types of offense, gender, and age. This is to examine the argument that students in the 1990s have become increasingly brutal, showing a new quality of violence. 2. Changes in numbers over the last fifteen years. This is to examine the argument that juvenile problem behavior in the 1990s is new and on the rise. 3. Comparison with other countries to qualify the numbers from an international perspective.

3

As a reason for collecting data only from public schools, school administrators reported that in order to protect equal opportunities for all private schools and to prevent stigmatization, private schools are excluded.

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JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN

4. Findings The analysis of the data on juvenile delinquency and problem behavior at schools produced the following results: 1. The data support the fact that numerically the highest incidence of problem behavior with respect to violence, bullying and absence from school can be found at junior high schools. In 1997, junior high school students committed 73% of violent incidents, and the overwhelming majority of the offenders were male. 2. But in cases of major delinquency, including violence reported by police, junior high school students are underrepresented. Most of these offenders are juveniles who do no longer attend school. Figure 2: Percentage of Selected Offenses Against the Juvenile Criminal Law, 1999 % 100

9,998,989 11.9

26,844

82,240

7.9

7.3

15,473

2,143

17.6

absolute number of cases

27.2

80

Employed 42.6

55.1

47.5

27.1

60

27.9

1.7

22.1

40

20

Unemployed

13.5 11.0

34.2

Junior High School Students

43.8 25.9

Senior High School Students

31.7

33.2 10.8

0 Total juvenile Illegal use of population bicycles

Theft

Simple assault

Serious violence

Sources: Keisatsuchô 2000:119, Rôdôshô 2000: 38, 44, Monbushô 2000: 24.

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GESINE FOLJANTY-JOST/MANUEL METZLER

3. In contrast to what the Japanese debate on juvenile problem behavior suggests, juveniles have not become more and more brutal during the 1990s. Arguments that young people have become more violent than ever neglect to note that the rate of homicide, the most serious crime conducted by juveniles during the sixties, was three times higher than today. After high numbers of violent incidents at schools between 1982 and 1985, numbers decreased until 1991, only to increase again thereafter. In 1996 the highest level of the 1980s was surpassed, but since 1998 bullying in particular has again been on the decline. Figure 3: Arrests of 10–19-Year-Olds in the Category of Simple Assault (Physical Injury, Act of Violence, Blackmail, Threatening Behavior) Per 100,000 Youths of the Same Age, 1960–1999

250

Physical injury

Total

200

150

100

50

0 60

65

70

75

80

85

90

95

Source: Hômushô Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho (Ed.): Hanzai hakusho 1998: 493.

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JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN

4. The majority of criminal offenses committed by students are minor cases of shoplifting and the illegal use of bicycles. Nearly 80% of the offenses are handled without proceeding to Family Court (see Metzler, A. 1999a). Figure 4: Juvenile Delinquency 1998 (Ratio of Type of Delinquency Among the Arrests of 14–19-Year-Olds in Percent; Total = 157,385 Arrests) Other 3% Simple aussault 11% Serious Violence 1% Theft 64%

Illegal use of bicycle 21%

Source: Compiled after Keisatsuchô: Keisatsu hakusho, 1999: 12.

5. Data about deviancy at schools exist for violence, bullying and absence from school, of which only the last has been increasing for more than ten years continuously. The numbers of violent incidents are increasing at a low level, even though the most frequent offenses are verbal attacks against classmates, followed by minor cases of violence and vandalism (Sômuchô Seishônen Taisaku Honbu 1997: 138).

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Table 1: Problem Behavior in Japanese Public Schools 1985 (in %)

1990 (in %)

1997 (in %)

Inner-school violence senior high schoolsa)

0.021

0.041

0.146

Inner-school violence junior high schoolsa)

0.087

0.091

0.364

Inner-school violence elementary schoolsa)

----------

----------

0.01

Absence from schoolb) junior high schools

0.483

0.784

1.690

Absence from schoolb) elementary schools

0.037

0.085

0.209

2.2

2.2

2.6

Senior high school students arrested by policed)

1.215

1.055

1.571

Junior high school students arrested by policed)

1.999

1.376

1.419

Drop-outsc)

Note: Percentage of all students of the given type of school who have been reported by schools to the Ministry of Education a) Since 1997 numbers include violence outside of schools b) More than 50 days per year c) Senior high school students only d) According to the data of the Ministry of Justice Sources: Sômuchô 1999: 15–17, Monbushô 1998: 51, 57, Hômushô 1998: 203.

6. To use rates of increases for argumentation neglects the absolute figures. For instance, in 1997 the reported 56% increase in robbery related to an increase of 600 cases, and the 55% increase in homicides to an absolute increase of 41 cases. (Keisatsuchô 1998: 315; 1999: 3). The data therefore do not support the view that Japanese juveniles are becoming more and more brutal. The number of major cases of violence with the police and the Family Court involved is not higher than in past decades. In schools, violence and bullying increased during the 1990s, but it is only a very small minority of students who become violent.

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JUVENILE DELINQUENCY IN JAPAN

Figure 5: Ratio of Juvenile Delinquency, 1987–1996 (Suspects/Arrests per 100,000 of the Same Age)

8000 7000 6000 5000 4000 3000 2000 1000 0 1987

1988

1989

1990

Japan France

1991

1992

1993

USA Germany

1994

1995

1996

Great Britain South Korea

Note: The term “juvenile” is defined as the age group of 10–17 years (France, Japan, South Korea, USA), 10–17 years (10–18 years before 1993) (Great Britain), 14–17 years (Germany). In the case of Germany, the crime rate appears to be higher because the age group of 10–13-year-olds is excluded. Source: Hômushô Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho 1998: 363, 413.

International comparison shows that besides South Korea, Japan has the lowest numbers of criminal offenses in juvenile delinquency, including violence and homicide. In 1996 the ratio of juvenile delinquents in Germany was six times higher than in Japan. Unlike in other countries, the numbers have not risen over the years. In comparison to other countries, Japanese juvenile offenses are minor cases, typical for their age group. With regard to the ages of juvenile delinquents, it is remarkable to note that in Japan, unlike in the USA, Great Britain and South Korea, delinquency decreases with increasing age, that is delinquency during the school period does not constitute the beginning of a criminal career. This view is supported by research that demonstrates that the majority of deviant juveniles in Japan return to conformity after leaving school (Metzler, A. 1999b).

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Table 2: Violence Among 13–15-Year-Old Students in Germany and Japan, 1997

Number of students (reference figure)

Germany

Japan (in parentheses: including cases of bullying

2,721,602

4,481,480

55,027 Absolute number of victims Ratio of violent cases among all students

(projection based on random sample of 3 % of all reported victims)

9,542

(14,765)

2.02 %

0.21 %

(0.33 %)

Sources: Unfallkassen (Accident Insurers); unpublished data 2000; Sômuchô 1998: 192, 195, Monbushô 1998a: 48, 50, 57.

With regard to bullying and violence at school, an international comparison is extremely difficult since at least in Germany no nationwide data are available, and the data that do exist are based on definitions different from those used by the Japanese. Therefore, we can only calculate on the basis of supplementary materials. As table 2 demonstrates, in the case of violence, we may estimate that in Japan approximately 0.3% of junior high school students become violent while in Germany we may expect approximately 2 to 3%.

5. Conclusion Our findings do not support the pessimistic view we have found in public discourse on deviancy in Japan. We cannot ignore the fact that problem behavior exists, and we even can confirm that there was an increase of violence at junior high schools in the mid-1990s. But to call this phenomenon part of the “disruption of classes” is not appropriate. The efficiency of the Japanese education system has not come to an end. Becoming deviant or even delinquent is not a general trend but as the data show, is limited to a small minority of students. The proportion of Japanese students who become violent is low in comparison with students of other countries, and the number of severe cases handled by police is sharply decreasing—from a level that is

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already one of the lowest among industrialized countries. Compared with former waves of problem behavior in the 1980s and compared with the situation in other countries, the situation at Japanese schools in the second part of the 1990s seems to be less dramatic than expected. There are problems at schools, but the overwhelming majority of students is well integrated, a higher proportion than in any other developed country. Therefore we have to conclude that there is a discrepancy between the high public concern about juvenile deviancy and the figures. These findings provoke further questions. Unlike Japanese colleagues, who argue that uniform, coercive school organization and stress are responsible for the crisis in schools (Taki 1998), we would argue that the low rates of deviancy at schools, as well as the fact that the majority of deviant juveniles return to conformity at latest when leaving school, indicate that Japanese schools are still able to integrate and reintegrate the overwhelming majority of students. We would therefore argue (see Metzler and Foljanty-Jost in this volume) that the overestimation of the problem of deviancy, or what Tokuoka (in this volume) has called “moral panic” may be part of prevention itself, since dramatization of the situation at schools may work as a permanent warning for all those involved in education.

6. References Albrecht, Günther (1993): Jugend, Recht und Kriminalität (Youth, Law and Crime). In: Krüger, Heinz-Hermann (ed.): Handbuch der Jugendforschung, 2nd rev. edition. Opladen: Leske + Budrich, pp. 495–525. Brunner, Rudolf/Dölling, Dieter (1996): Jugendgerichtsgesetz (Juvenile law), 10th edition. Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. Fukaya, Masashi (1997): Japanische Jugendliche im internationalen Vergleich: Grundlegende Merkmale und aktuelle Tendenzen (Japanese youths in international comparison: basic characteristics and recent trends). In: Foljanty-Jost, Gesine; Rössner, Dieter (eds.): Gewalt unter Jugendlichen in Deutschland und Japan–Ursachen und Bekämpfung. Unter Mitarbeit von Britta Bannenberg und Annette Erbe. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 139–150. Hayami, Hiroshi (1989): ‘Hikô no ippanka’ ron saikô (The Theory on ‘the Generalization of Crime’ Rconsidered), Hanzai Shakaigaku Kenkyû 14, pp. 109–128. Hômushô Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho (ed.) (annual publication): Hanzai hakusho (White Paper on Crime). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô insatsukyoku. Keisatsuchô (ed.) (cont.): Keisatsu hakusho (White Paper on Police). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô insatsukyoku.

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Kühne, Hans-Heiner/Miyazawa, Kôichi (1979): Kriminalität und Kriminalitätsbekämpfung in Japan (Crime and Crime control in Japan). Wiesbaden: Bundeskriminalamt. Metzler, Anne (1999a): Jugenddelinquenz und Jugenddevianz in Japan. Eine Datensammlung (Deviancy and Juvenile Delinquency in Japan. A Collection of Data). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan: Occasional Papers, vol. 5. Halle: Seminar für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. —— (1999b): Jugendkriminalität in Japan im internationalen Vergleich (Youth Crime in Japan in International Comparison). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan: Occasional Papers, vol. 8. Halle: Seminar für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Metzler, Anne/Metzler, Manuel (2000): Wer sind die Täter? Merkmale krimineller japanischer Jugendlicher (Who are the Offenders? Characteristics of Japanese Juvenile Delinquents). In: Foljanty-Jost, Gesine (ed.): Schule, Schüler und Gewalt—Beiträge zu Deutschland, Japan, China und der Mongolei. München: Iudicium, pp. 170–195. Monbushô (cont.): Monbu tôkei yoran (Educational and Cultural Statistics). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô insatsukyoku. Mori, Takeo (1998): Saikin no hikô/hikô shônen ni tsuite (On Recent Deviancy and Deviant Youths). Keijihô no sho-mondai 5. Senshû Daigaku Hôgaku Kenkyûsho kiyô 23, pp. 61–112. —— (1999): Die Krisentheorie. Ein Erklärungsmodell für delinquentes Verhalten Jugendlicher (The Crisis Theory. A Model for Explaining Juvenile Delinquent Behavior). Translated by Metzler, Anne; Metzler, Manuel. Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan: Occasional Paperss, vol. 6. Ed. by Gesine Foljanty-Jost. Halle: Seminar für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Morita, Yôji (1997): Privatisierung in der japanischen Gesellschaft und die Struktur von Schikane an Schulen (Privatization in Japanese Society and the Structure of Bullying at Schools). In: Foljanty-Jost, Gesine/Rössner, Dieter (eds.), Gewalt unter Jugendlichen in Deutschland und Japan. Ursachen und ihre Bekämpfung. Unter Mitarbeit von Britta Bannenberg und Annette Erbe. Baden-Baden: Nomos. pp. 85–99. Rôdôshô (ed.) (2000): Rôdô tôkei yôran (Labour Statistics). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Scholten, Hans Joseph/Siethoff, Frank G. A. (1986): Jugendstrafe und Jugendstrafvollzug in den Niederlanden (Punishment and Imprisonment of Juveniles in the Netherlands). In: Dünkel, Frieder; Meyer, Klaus (eds.), Jugendstrafe und Jugendstrafvollzug. Stationäre Maßnahmen der Jugendkriminalrechtspflege im internationalen Vergleich. Teil 1: Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Skandinavien und westeuropäische Länder. Freiburg: Eigenverlag, pp. 567–664. Sômuchô (ed.): Seishônen hakusho (White Paper on Youth). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Taki, Mitsuru (1996): ‘Ijime’ o sodateru gakkyû tokusei—Gakkô ga tsukuru kodomo no sutoresu (Characteristics of Classes that Generate ‘Bullying’—Children’s Stress Created by the School). Tôkyô: Meiji Tosho. —— (1998): Kodomo no sutoresu to sono yôin (Children’s Stress and its Causes). Kokuritsu kyôiku kenkyûsho kenkyû shûroku 36, pp. 1–11.

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Toyama-Bialke, Chisaki (1998): Adolescents’ Daily Lives and Parental Attitudes toward the School: A German-Japanese Comparative Study. Studies in Educational Evaluation 24/4, pp. 347–367. Uchiyama, Ayako (1995): Hanzai-hikô no ryôteki ha’aku (Quantitative Assessment of Crime and Delinquency). In: Hoshino, Shûkô; Yonekawa, Shigenobu et.al (eds.): Hanazai-hikô jiten. Tôkyô: Ôsei Shuppan, pp. 32–41. Unfallkassen (2000): http://www.unfallkassen.de/Studie.PDF/26.09.2000.

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THE “JAPANESE TRIANGLE” FOR PREVENTING ADOLESCENT DELINQUENCY: STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES OF THE FAMILY-SCHOOL-ADOLESCENT RELATIONSHIP FROM A COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE Chisaki Toyama-Bialke

1. Introduction The main aim of this article is to consider Japanese policies of education and socialization in the context of how the Japanese prevent adolescent delinquent behavior. By international comparison, the crime rate of Japanese juveniles is low. Metzler (Metzler, A. 1999) concluded on the basis of her close analysis of criminal statistics from Japan, France, Germany, Great Britain, South Korea and the United States that it is obvious that Japan has a significantly low crime rate among juveniles compared to Western nations. For example, in cases of mayhem and homicide, the crime rate of Western juveniles is at least three to five times higher than that of Japanese juveniles. Most juvenile offenses in Japan are not heinous crimes but petty larceny, that is, shoplifting and the theft of motorcycles and bicycles.1 Despite such a low crime rate, Japanese public discussion and the statements from government about juvenile delinquency are characterized by pessimistic and exaggerated views. Although the statistical increase in the number of arrests involving juvenile offenders is highly influenced by the increase in policing activity, changes in the methodology of producing the statistical data and so forth, mass media reports about the increase are widespread and as a result people are under the impression that conditions are deteriorating.

1

The criminal statistics also show that the crime rate in Japan reaches a peak between the ages of 14 and 17 and falls significantly within the older age categories of youth and adults. Consequently, the low crime rate of adults is a remarkable feature of Japan by international comparison (Metzler, A. 1999).

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This kind of situation has the potential of creating a form of paranoia that feeds on the public’s perceived image of juvenile behavior in society (Ayukawa 1995)2. In a similar way, the Japanese government and the mass media have reported on a surge in cases involving violence in the family (mostly violence by sons towards their parents), school violence (mostly violence in schools by students towards teachers) and bullying among students. Although some scholars (for example Yamamura 1995, Itô 1997) have warned that such statistical data are highly affected by those who interpret and count such cases and therefore are not necessarily reliable, people have come to believe that juveniles are becoming increasingly brutal.3 In attempting to explain the Japanese crime rate among juveniles, which is low by international comparison, and the high level of awareness of problem behavior among people in Japan, it is necessary to pay more attention to policies of education and socialization, of whose features members of Japanese society are not often conscious. There are at least two ways to elucidate such features that are regarded as ‘natural’ in everyday life. One is a historical approach to examine the changes in educational policies and the adult views of youngsters that underlie the policies and that are shared by people during particular periods. Examples of this approach are found in studies conducted by Itô (1996) and by Hirota (1998), which describe changes in discourses of juvenile problem behavior after World War II in Japan. Another approach is a cross-cultural comparison of education and socialization policies. This approach is used in this article, and some 2

It is often reported in the White Paper of the police or other departments as well as by the mass media in Japan that there have been apparent peaks in the number of offenses committed by juveniles: the first was in 1950, the second was from 1961 to 1966, and the third was from 1983 to 1988. The third peak was proclaimed in sensational ways to be the worst since World War II by the mass media as well as the Japanese government. Analysing such phenomena from a constructionist perspective, Ayukawa (1995) argued that such rises in delinquency statistics should be interpreted as the number of arrests and not crimes. The number of delinquency cases decreased during a period in which the police concentrated on controlling political activity by student activists, new leftist groups and terrorist groups in the late 1960s, whereas the number rose when the police’s energy was redirected towards controlling minor delinquent juvenile behavior again. Moreover, the main cause of the third statistical peak included an increase in larceny, mostly shoplifting and the theft of motorcycles and bicycles. 3 It seems to be more difficult to produce reliable data about “bullying” than criminal statistics. Therefore, this will not be discussed in this article directly.

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cross-cultural studies are reviewed in order to explore the background of the contradiction between the crime rate in Japan, which is low by international comparison, and the pessimistic pecepstion of juvenile crime in Japanese society. In my opinion, international comparative studies using standardized questionnaires on educational policies and values are problematic. One considerable problems is the fact that questionnaires are highly influenced by cultural biases from the researcher’s perspective (see Toyama-Bialke 2000: 77–84). This is not to say that quantitative studies have no strengths in cross-cultural comparisons. However, in studies with qualitative approaches, data are often obtained in the context of each culture and relatively free from the cultural biases of the researchers. This is important if we take into account the fact that our view towards the problem behavior of juveniles is affected strongly by culturally biased values. In this article, therefore, the findings reviewed are mainly from studies based on the analyses of qualitative data. Reviewing the findings from those studies shows that features of Japanese cultural policies of education and socialization are reflected most in the relationship between family, school and children, which can be called here the Japanese triangle. This implies basic and consistent features in educational policies and values that are observed in social interactions between parents and children (that is, in the family) as well as between teachers and students or among students (that is, in school). The features of the Japanese triangle seem to play an important role as measures against problem behavior. Thus, in the first part of this article, the main features of this Japanese triangle will be presented, as described in a number of cross-cultural studies. We will then concentrate on diversity within respective cultures in the second part, that is, problem behavior of adolescents from lower social strata who tend to misbehave more frequently than middle-class adolescents in Western societies as well as in Japan. This may offer another perspective for considering how effective the Japanese triangle is in preventing problem behavior for diverse social sub-groups.

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2. The Japanese Triangle From Comparative Perspectives When we consider the Japanese triangle from a comparative perspective, it seems to be useful to make a distinction between two aspects of the triangle. The first is the aspect of adult behavior towards children, in other words, how adults treat children in Japanese cultural policies of education. And the second is the aspect of adult norms and values implied in an adult view of how children and adolescents should be. Adults try to transmit such norms and values to youngsters through their “behavior” (see also Kornadt/Trommsdorff 1984, Yamamura 1993). Each aspect plays an important role in dealing with the problem behavior of youngsters. In this chapter, let us begin with Japanese adult behavior towards children and consider which basic features can be found beyond the diversity within respective cultures. We will then review findings of cross-cultural studies focusing on one side of the Japanese triangle, the family-child relationship and then on the other side, the schoolchild relationship, and finally on the side of the family-school relationship. We will also shed light on the question of how problem behavior is treated by parents and schoolteachers in the context of Japanese behavior. After this consideration, Japanese adult norms and values will be illustrated. It must be noted that a term such as problem behavior can vary in different cultures because different actions are regarded as problems or as deviant. Therefore, this article also attempts to describe which concrete actions or behavior are viewed and treated as “deviant” in each culture. Studies that help to illustrate the Japanese triangle have often been conducted in the field of cross-cultural psychology. Some ethnographic studies whose data are based on observation at Japanese schools by foreign (mostly American) scholars also include implicit comparative perspectives. In these fields, most cross-cultural studies on Japanese education and socialization have focused on AmericanJapanese comparisons. In addition to these studies, I will also refer to German-Japanese comparative studies, although their number is limited. This is not to say that the results of comparisons between the USA and Japan on the one hand and those between Germany and Japan on the other are the same. However, essential features in Japanese

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cases seem to be clear in comparison with both American and German cases. 2.1 Japanese Adult Behavior Towards Children 2.1.1 Basic Features of Japanese Behavior Hess and Azuma (1991), who conducted a Japanese-American comparative study on mother-toddler interactions, distinguish between two cultural modes through which cultural transmission takes place. One is osmosis, in which nurturing, interdependence, and close physical proximity provide exposure to adult values and instill a readiness on the part of the child to imitate, accept and internalize such values. The other is teaching, in which direct instruction, injunctions, frequent dialogue and explanations are used. According to the findings from their comparative study, parents in Japan are more inclined to use osmosis than American parents. Osmosis is enhanced in an empathic relationship between the child and his or her socializing agent as well as close physical proximity for long periods of time. Under these conditions, feelings and behavior patterns of the socializing agent penetrate even without injunctions and intentional teaching. This mode of cultural transmission can be found in Japanese patterns of mothering as well as socialization at schools (Azuma 1994). 2.1.2 Family-Child Relationship According to some cross-cultural psychology findings, one of the central features of the Japanese family is the close emotional motherchild bond. Japanese mothers tend to stay physically closer to their infants for a longer time and are more sympathetically responsive to their children than American or German mothers. They indulge their children and keep them interdependent with them (Hess/Azuma 1991, Trommsdorff/Friedlmeier 1993). This evokes a strong sense of interdependence in the child and helps it to assimilate the hopes, feelings and values of its caretaker. This Japanese child-rearing pattern might contribute to weakening aggressiveness. Kornadt (1988) explains that low aggressiveness is predicted if aggression is not needed by the child to enhance his selfesteem and if aggression is neither experienced nor rewarded in early mother-child interaction. According to his study conducted in Japan and Germany, Japanese mothers become less annoyed with their chil-

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dren and they seldom interpret misbehavior in ways that might threaten or harm the child’s self-esteem. They avoid conflicts and an escalation of anger, but nevertheless lead the child towards obeying rules and social norms. 2.1.3 School-Child Relationship Empathic human relationships and close physical proximity between people who transmit norms and values can be also found in Japanese school education, albeit in institutionalized ways. Ethnographic studies in Japanese pre-elementary, elementary and junior high schools show that developing strong, positive bonds—between teachers and students as well as among students—is the most important concern. Japanese teachers place a strong emphasis on building interpersonal bonding and this involves trusting relationships between teachers and students and understanding how children feel and think. They regard this as just as important for social relationships in their school life as successful academic instruction (Shimahara & Sakai 1995, Fukuzawa 1996). Elementary school teachers try to stay close to their students for long periods through playing with them, eating lunch with them in class and cleaning the classroom with them. In most elementary and junior high schools, a “lifestyle diary” is used as an essential tool for building a strong bond (Shimahara & Sakai 1995, LeTendre 1996). Students fill out lifestyle diaries, writing down how many hours they have studied at home, special things they have done and problems that are bothering them. Homeroom teachers return the diaries with comments on a daily or weekly basis. This allows teachers to gain personal information that can be also used to form a strong emotional connection with their students. Japanese schools also have a lot of features that foster interpersonal bonding among students. One of the most common practices in Japanese elementary schools is the use of small groups (han) to which children can feel connected more easily than to a big class. Group members learn to work together through the pursuit of a wide range of activities, from learning activities such as science experiments or art projects to eating lunch together or cleaning the classroom. Lewis (1996) suggests that these family-like small groups differ from groups organized in American schools. The former includes children of various abilities so those children have access to other children who can read, explain mathematics, or are good at sports. Moreover, its members stay together for relatively long periods of time, such as a few

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months. In contrast to this, groups at American elementary schools are often task-specific (for example reading) and temporarily organized according to the student’s level of ability. Although small groups are also organized during the junior high school years, school clubs are more important in building close bonds among students. Most junior high schools provide a large variety of leisure activities in school clubs and the majority of students attend such after-school activities almost every day. Clubs often have an important function in junior high school life from the student’s perspective. Most students belong to one club throughout the junior high school years and meet their best friends in clubs (Fukaya 1983, Nishijima et al. 1999). They not only enjoy leisure activities but also learn to endure hardships for the sake of the group by following the orders of the senior members and taking responsibility within the clubs (LeTendre 1996). 2.1.4 What is “Japanese Behavior” When Dealing With Problem Behavior? Japanese families and schools deal with problem behavior in similar ways. By comparison to American or German mothers, Japanese mothers are less likely to feel annoyed and more willing to excuse children’s behavior, believing they are not yet responsible or do not understand the situation (Azuma 1994, Kornadt 1988, Kornadt/ Trommsdorff 1990). Their strategies tend to avoid conflicts, appealing to the child’s feelings and his or her identity as a “good child”. These basic patterns can be seen also at school. Strategies utilized by Japanese teachers to manage problem behavior differ according to the student’s age, but they have some basic elements are common: they minimize direct confrontation and are based on empathic human relations. Studies based on observation in Japanese pre-schools show that Japanese teachers try not to isolate disruptive children from the group by singling them out for punishment or excluding them from a group activity (Tobin/Wu/Davidson 1989). They avoid interacting with children in unpleasant and stressful ways and encourage other children to deal with their classmates’ troubles and misdeeds in various ways. Therefore, they maintain order without intervening directly in children’s disputes and misbehavior (Lewis 1984). Moreover, Japanese pre-school teachers also use various unofficial group categories in everyday practices (Yuki 1994). These groups help children to recog-

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nize deviant behavior as behavior that is different from majority group behavoir. Thus, they learn to reject deviant behavior and they are encouraged to correct their behavior through modeling themselves after the well-behaved majority group. Similar treatment patterns of deviant students were also observed in elementary and junior high schools. Teachers control students not through rewards and punishments but by building the students’ bonds to others or promoting their long-term internalization of values. Elementary school teachers often try to help deviant children preserve their identity as “good children”, or save face with classmates (Lewis 1996). In contrast, American teachers tend to use disciplinary techniques which appeal to their authority and believe that a classroom will be reduced to chaos if teachers handle disruptive students in a lenient way (Tsuneyoshi 1992). In the junior high school years, it is difficult to avoid conflicts between teachers and students or among students going through puberty. It is important here to note that “problems” in this age group seem to vary among different cultures significantly. These are reflected not only in the ways adolescents are treated in each culture but also in the adult norms and values towards them, which will be illustrated later. Institutionalized strategies called “seikatsu shidô” (life guidance) or “seito shidô” (student guidance) demonstrate how adolescents are treated in most junior high schools in Japan. They consist of a series of preventive measures as well as procedures that treat problem behavior directly. The preventive measures consist primarily of uniforms, school rules and control over the student’s daily behavior. By using these strategies, teachers emphasize the importance of the “correct” style of living regarding manners and deportment. Most public junior high schools have official uniforms and control students according to strict school rules. Teachers regularly control the student’s appearance such as dealing with a missing name tag, the length of a girl’s skirt, or a different color of headband from one that is stipulated by the rules. Teachers believe that outward appearance is an indication of whether the student is prone to getting into trouble and of whether the student is disconnected from school (LeTendre 1996). Moreover, teacher responsibility for student behavior is not restricted to the school grounds; teachers also check and patrol local trouble spots such as stores and entertainment centers during the school vacation. In addition to institutionalized strategies for problem behavior, strategies to treat misbehaving students in junior high schools are

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characterized by their integration into empathic human relationships at school. Disruptive students are not excluded from school life. Teachers often try to use club participation as a way of reintegrating students with their peers. Teacher invest enormous time and energy in repeated after-school counseling sessions and home visits, as well as by having the students write reflection papers and by lecturing in assemblies. In sharp contrast to this approach, American teachers are inclined to expel disruptive students from the class and send them to the vice-principal’s office or to outside professionals such as the police, psychologists and counselors (LeTendre 2000). Such strategies can be also found in American pre-elementary and elementary schools, in which disruptive children are sent to special offices (Tobin/Wu/Davidson 1989, Tsuneyoshi 1992). Thus, Japanese teachers’ involvement and responsibilities extend far beyond the American notion of a teacher’s role (LeTendre 1996). Although there is little evidence arising from German-Japanese comparative studies, the same seems to be true for a comparison with German cases generally. As described above, Japanese teachers give the same or more importance to extra-curricular activities and dealing with emotional and behavioral problems than to instruction in academic subjects. This forms a striking contrast to German schools. Although in Germany, more attention has recently been paid to expanding the role of the school as a socializing agent through extracurricular activities and through cooperation between school and social work agencies (Holtappels 1994, Olk et al. 2000), German schools have been institutions mostly for academic learning. This is reflected in the fact that time spent in extra-curricular activities at Japanese schools is more than three times the amount at German schools (Toyama-Bialke 2000). The German notion of “school” as a site of academic learning has been constructed over long periods of time and is widespread among people, and it seems to be resistant to change. 2.1.5 Family-School Relationship It is likely that the different role assignment given to teachers in Japan and Germany has to do with the different role of families as well as with the different family-school relationships. Japanese schoolteachers deal with emotional and behavioral problems and this is more fully supported by Japanese parents than by German parents. According to a German-Japanese comparative study (Toyama-Bialke 1998, 2000),

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German parents are likely to assign only the limited role of academic work directly to the school. They expect their children to make independent decisions about their own lifestyles and that the school should not attempt to control their children’s lives. In contrast to this, Japanese parents view the school not so much as a place to study but rather more as a place to live. They also want the school to control the “outof-school” life of teenagers. This difference in role assignment between home and school leads to a difference in how families and schools cooperate. Fukuzawa (1996), whose field work compared Japanese junior high schools with American schools, also described a situation in which Japanese teachers try to build a united front with parents to effect changes in student problem behavior and request parental support for school discipline. They supply parents with frequent, detailed information on school events and monitor the home life of students. This “united front” does not necessarily mean that Japanese parents are much more satisfied with the school and school policy than German or American parents. However, in parent-teacher communication, Japanese parents express less criticism of teachers than do German or US parents. The greater initiative in education on the part of the Japanese school system is more accepted (Stevenson et al. 1990, Fukuzawa 1996, Toyma-Bialke 2000: 217–221). 2.2 Japanese Adult Norms and Values Towards Children What norms and values are transmitted through the Japanese triangle described above? These include the adult view of children and expectations of how children should behave. Therefore, adults are closely related to what is treated as a “problem” and is reflected in the definition of “delinquency” in law or in various sanctions in a classroom. The core of adult norms and values in Japan seems to imply the importance of interpersonal harmony and social skills. These are not only educational goals but also traits that more greatly strengthen emotional bonds between children and their caretakers. An AmericanJapanese comparative study on mothers of pre-school children shows that Japanese mothers emphasize adequate social skills in human relationships as an educational goal, whereas American mothers give more importance to verbal assertion and independence (Azuma 1994). A German-Japanese comparative study also emphasized that educational goals such as cooperation, empathy and compliance were mentioned more often by mothers of toddlers in Japan than in Germany

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(Kornadt/Trommsdorff 1990). In a cross-cultural study on the definition of a “bad kid”, Japanese adolescents and mothers were much more likely than their American and Chinese counterparts to mention behaviors that are disruptive to interpersonal harmony (Crystal/Stevenson 1995). Which norms and values are emphasized also differ according to the age of the youngsters within each culture. In the junior high school years, adequate social skills remain important as an educational goal. However, the content of learning social skills is gradually more oriented towards adulthood. Junior high school students are also expected to endure hardships for the sake of the group and take responsibility within groups. This is expected not only on the part of teachers (LeTendre 1996) but also parents (Toyama-Bialke 2002). Parents and teachers also agree to conditions that foster this development. Hardship and discomfort are regarded not as barriers to education, but as educational situations in which challenges are posed and an opportunity for improvement is provided (Rohlen 1996). This indicates that the junior high school years are a part of the whole process of “character building” that leads to maturity. This explains why Japanese junior high schools attempt to control student appearance and behavior by means of strict school rules. Student commitment to material youth culture that is influenced strongly by consumer industries and the mass media are treated severely. Identification with peer groups not sanctioned by the school as well as the public exhibition of close boy-girl relationships are considered undesirable for this age group by school teachers (LeTendre 2000). This control is also expected by parents (Toyama-Bialke 2002). All of the elements that are assumed to form a part of adolescent-specific behavior in Western societies are treated severely because they are characterized as the opposite of “hardship” and “discomfort” that provide adolescents with an important opportunity for character building. In Germany, such issues are not in the responsibility of the school. At the same time, German parents allow more independent decisionmaking on the part of teenagers with regard to their lifestyles. This is also regarded as an important educational goal by them (ToyamaBialke 2002). Therefore, how German teenagers commit themselves not only to schoolwork but also to peer groups, close boy-girl relationships and youth culture are dealt with more directly by each family than in Japan. The American situation is more similar to the German than to the Japanese one (Fuligni/Stevenson 1995). From a Western

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point of view, Japanese strategies might evoke a well-known image of restrictive Japanese schools often reported not only by the Japanese media but also by the Western media and researchers. However, according to a study based on long-term observation in junior high schools in Japan and the U.S. (LeTendre 2000), the majority of Japanese teachers basically tend to ignore a great deal of behavior that would have been labeled as disruptive in American schools. American teachers interpret student non-task behavior—talking in class, moving about, playing with materials—as a sign of disrespect or an attempt to undermine their authority. In similar cases of problem behavior such as using disrespectful language towards teachers, which was observed both in American and Japanese classrooms, American teachers regarded this as defiance of authority and treated such actions severely, whereas Japanese teachers attribute such disruptive behavior to a sign of immaturity and a demand for attention (see also Tsuneyoshi 2001). Thus, the following three features of the Japanese triangle should be noted: firstly, the view of desirable or undesirable adolescent behavior differs between cultures considerably. From the Japanese point of view, interpersonal harmony takes the highest priority. Secondly, compared to Germany, Japanese adult norms and values are relatively homogenous. In other words, there is a relatively strong consensus between the family and school. Thirdly, it can be assumed that these relatively homogeneous norms and values towards children, such as a strong emphasis on interpersonal harmony, are transmitted to youngsters at home and in an institutionalized system at school on a continuous basis. All of these can protect Japanese children and youth from the diversity of values relatively more than is the case in Germany and weaken the risks and uncertainty caused by so-called “individualization” (Beck 1986, Heitmeyer/Olk 1991). Japanese youth are less confronted with the problem of making life choices and decisions by themselves (Kreitz-Sandberg 1994, Toyama-Bialke 2000). Thus, from a cross-cultural perspective, it seems reasonable to assume that the Japanese triangle contributes to setting clearly defined educational goals and generally preventing children and adolescents from delinquent behavior. This can explain the low crime rate of Japanese juveniles. On the other hand, this does not mean that there are no delinquent adolescents in Japan. It is therefore worthwhile to examine how well the cultural policies of education and socialization in Japan serve as

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preventive strategies. If we focus on differences between cultures, we are likely to forget that the Japanese triangle also has diverse variations. The question that we must consider next is how valid the Japanese triangle is for diverse social groups. We will focus now on the question of which adolescents are most likely to misbehave and how they come to misbehave within the Japanese triangle, as well as on how this process differs from the processes in other societies such as Germany.

3. The Diversity of the Japanese Triangle Today in Japan, different social backgrounds of children and adolescents are less noted as a cause of problem behavior than in Western countries (Foljanty-Jost 2000, Metzler 2000, Sato 1991) There is, however, evidence to prove that adolescents from lower social strata who show poor academic performance also exhibit more delinquent behavior (see Yonekawa and Yoder in this volume). From this perspective, let us again consider the triangle of family, school and problem behavior, first through the lens of some quantitative studies. 3.1 Findings from Studies with Quantitative Approaches 1. According to studies using quantitative data and research methods that examined relationships between educational achievement and social strata in Japan, the relationships between parental occupational status and educational levels and child school performance and educational achievement has remained unchanged in Japan since World War II. The higher the parents’ socioeconomic status, the better educated the children (Kariya 1995). Although it is often believed that Japan is a “meritocratic” society, this effect that stems from family background in Japan is comparable to the effect of family background in other industrialized nations (Ishida 1989). Furthermore, it was proved that manual workers show lower educational aspirations for their children than white-collar parents (Shimizu/Tokuda 1991, Yonekawa in this volume). 2. There is also evidence that young people from relatively lower social strata are more likely to become delinquent (Matsumoto 1984, Hoshino 1986, Hirota 1999, Yonekawa in this volume). This is also the same finding that is found in other industrialized coun-

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tries. For instance, studies in Germany (for example Engel/Hurrelmann 1989) point out that adolescents whose fathers are less educated and have a lower socioeconomic status commit delinquency more often. 3. It has also often been proven in Japan that the commitment of lowachieving students to school life is relatively low and they tend to misbehave more often (Metzler/Metzler 2000). Delinquent adolescents are likely to show more problems in adjusting to school by exhibiting defiant behavior in the classroom or by skipping school (Matsumoto 1984). This is true not only for Japan but also for Germany (Busch 2000). This relation between school, family background and problem behavior seems to be same in Japan as in many other societies. Therefore, a similar explanation for delinquent behavior can be also found. If adolescents fail to be successful at school in the context of intense academic pressure, they feel frustrated and commit themselves to delinquency.4 However, this may be only an interpretation of results from quantitative data analyses and cannot explain what is really happening within the Japanese triangle in cases of adolescents from lower social strata. Thus, it is worth examining this question with regard to studies with qualitative approaches whose major strength is that they can clarify complex relationships of the phenomenon. 3.2 Findings from Studies with Qualitative Approaches No American-Japanese or German-Japanese comparative studies has ever tried to answer questions about why and how adolescents come to misbehave and what role family and school play in their respective cultural contexts. In the following section, a review of some qualitative studies in Japan in comparison with German cases will be attempted. It is not possible to give a conclusive answer to the question without any cross-cultural studies. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to provide some useful perspectives for further comparative studies by analyzing how problem behavior arises in respective cultures. There are fewer studies focused on youth in lower social strata or misbehaving adolescents using qualitative approaches than quan4

A significant difference between the German and Japanese discussion is that the German discussion focuses on the inequality of educational opportunity according to family background as a cause of delinquency, whereas the social strata of students play only a minor role in the Japanese discussion (Foljanty-Jost 2000, Metzler 2000).

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titative ones. However, qualitative approaches certainly proposed some interesting perspectives in respect to the following three points: first, the diversity of the triangle; second, the complexity of interaction processes between family, school, community and adolescents in which problem behavior arises; and third, the importance of insider perspectives, such as how misbehaving youth explain their own misbehavior. In this section, some findings mainly from qualitative studies are presented according to these three points. 3.2.1 The Diversity of the Triangle It must be noted that categories such as “lower social stratum”, “school”, or “problem behavior” include diverse sub-categories. For example, in Japan the category “families from lower social strata” can include various family types, such as families in a working-class community, those in a Buraku5 community, a segment of single-parent families, families with handicapped members or with a sick person and cultural minorities. With respect to school, we should not forget that school culture is also diverse. There are, for example, different types of approaches with regard to school control as shown towards student problem behavior and also between schools with a lot of trouble in the same working-class community. As Shimizu and Tokuda (1991) explain, one is characterized by tight control and physical punishment and the other mainly by frequent counseling sessions, home visits and contacts with misbehaving students also outside the school. And it must also be observed that student sub-cultures are also diverse within the same school and that there are also different types of student problem behavior.

5

Buraku people are the largest population group facing discrimination in Japan. They are not a racial or a national minority, but a caste-like minority among the ethnic Japanese. They are generally recognized as descendants of outcast populations in the past. Outcasts were assigned such social functions as slaughtering animals and executing criminals and the general public perceived these functions as “polluting acts” under Buddhist and Shintoist beliefs. At present, the word “Buraku” is usually referred to as communities where marginalised Buraku people reside. Today, there are 6,000 Buraku communities with an overall population of more than 3 million. Although the living standards of Buraku people have become better compared to the past, there are still gaps between Buraku and non-Buraku people. In addition, there are many incidents of discrimination, particularly in marriage and employment as well as discriminatory remarks and inquiries made by non-Buraku people, including public officials.

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3.2.2 The Complex Interaction Processes Between Family, School, Community and Problem Behavior As illustrated above, Japanese behavior towards children is characterized by the building of emotional bonds that lead to the integration of students into school life. We will now ask in which human relationships some students from lower social strata become delinquent. Is the strategy of building emotional bonds effective neither for the academic success of such adolescents nor for their integration into school life? Here we concentrate first on the problem of academic success and observe the following three points as reasons why and how adolescents from lower social strata tend to be less successful at school: 1) the different living conditions between school teachers and students from lower social strata, 2) the stereotyping or discriminative views on the part of school teachers as well as community and 3) the lower academic aspirations of parents from lower social strata. a) Academic Success of Children and Adolescents from Lower Social Strata 1. Both in Germany and Japan there are studies that point out that student behavior from lower social strata in a classroom tends to be evaluated negatively by school teachers who belong to middle-class culture (Nishida 1996b, Ditton 1993, Gomolla 1998). This can lead to their poor school performance and finally to low educational achievement. Although this mechanism may vary according to students’ various family backgrounds such as those found in workingclass culture or cultural minorities, one common point is that the living conditions (Bourdieu 1987) of such students plays a role in the evaluation process in a classroom. This might be a complex interaction process in which lower expectations on the part of teachers towards students from lower social strata—as Auernheimer (1996) puts it hypothetically—fuction as a “Pygmalion-effect” in a classroom. 2. The stereotypical view of teachers towards families from lower social strata may also exert negative effects on students from minority groups. Kudomi and his team (1993) studied this mechanism in a municipal apartment with a high rate of families receiving income support by doing interviews with residents, parents and youth, teachers and social workers. According to this study, the following complex relationship was found. Despite the high educa-

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tional aspirations of single parents, they often become the target of gossip in the neighborhood and are isolated in the community. They have almost no resources of time and energy to deal with their children’s academic or behavioral problems at the school. On the other hand, schoolteachers have a stereotypical view of singleparent families or those receiving income support and believe that such families do not take care of their children sufficiently or do not support their children’s schoolwork. Due to this stereotype, they cannot develop adequate support programs with such families that students really need. Therefore, if such students fail to be involved in school life and associate themselves with delinquent peer groups or exhibit “school refusal syndrome”, teachers simply blame their family background or students themselves. In the case of Buraku youth in a fishing village studied by Ikeda (1985), factors outside of the family and school also play an important role. Buraku youth, whose parents and ancestors have suffered a long history of discrimination, tend to fail at school due to their disadvantages. At the same time, because of discrimination and the exclusion of Buraku youth in the town community, they form peer groups that are characterized by a unique lifestyle and strong solidarity. The manual worker culture of Buraku people is reflected in this out-of-school lifestyle. Thus, they rebel against school, which is, however, only one example of a reaction to the exclusion from dominant groups of the town community. Similar patterns may also be true in German cases. In Germany it is often said that immigrant (especially Turkish) adolescents commit themselves to delinquency the most. Auernheimer (1998, 2000) points out that German schoolteachers have stereotypical views towards Muslim students as well as their families. They are likely to regard immigrant families as authoritarian and such students as oppressed. This shows a concordance with discriminative views of people in a community (Klink/Wagner 1999). In such contexts some adolescents—as Tertilt (1997) illustrates with respect to adolescents from Turkish backgrounds—tend to build peer groups that show strong solidarity and also commit criminal activities. According to a study conducted by Popp (2000) using questionnaires and interviews, Turkish students experience more negative labeling and feel less accepted in their class group than their German classmates.

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Such discriminative views on the part of the teachers or community and classmates is not always the direct cause of problem behavior of adolescents from lower social strata. However, it at least plays a role in the whole interaction process. 3. It is well known that working-class parents have lower academic aspiration for their children in Western societies (for Germany see IFS-Institut 1998: 18). Little attention has been paid to this phenomenon in Japan due to its famous image as a meritocratic society in which everyone is geared to participate in academic competition (Kariya 1995). However, as stated above, some findings from quantitative studies deny this image. Nishida (1996a), who studied a working-class community through participant observation and interviews, also pointed out that parents and adolescents have low academic aspirations, are not competitive at school and do not share a desire for the middle-class oriented life course such as going to a high-ranking university and getting a good job at a famous company. However, they all encourage and cheer high-achieving classmates to be successful at entrance examinations for good high schools. Such low aspirations of students and parents in workingclass communities are, however, considered to be due of a lack of engagement by schoolteachers. Thus, underprivileged adolescents often fail to perform academically and lose their motivation for active participation in school learning. This seems to be common in Japanese and German cases. Here may be some potential that leads them to disconnect from the school and to commit delinquent actions. However, it would be hasty to conclude that Japanese adolescents from lower social strata build no positive emotional bonds at school. b) Integration of Children and Adolescents Into School Life The Japanese school system has a wide role by trying to integrate students into school life and convey social norms to students through emotional bonds more actively than for example, the German school system. How does this strategy work for cases of adolescents from lower social strata? Findings from some qualitative studies indicate its effectiveness in the following two features of the Japanese school system: 1) its life guidance and 2) the plurality of its evaluation criteria.

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1. Although Japanese teachers view students from lower social strata with their stereotypes and blame the family background for student misbehavior, they try to be eagerly or more eagerly committed to such students through life guidance than to well-behaving students and tend to take on parental roles. A case study at a school in a working-class area (Nishida 1994) shows that teachers at this school also place emphasis on building emotional human bonds through various extra-curricular activities such as frequent contacts with misbehaving students and their home, home visits, phone calls to parents, counseling sessions and a homeroom newspaper which informs parents about everyday life in the classroom. It is not uncommon for teachers to make such efforts almost daily till late at night. If such efforts are acknowledged by misbehaving students and they have the feeling that teachers are working for their sake, then they will accept the teachers’ advice and also punishment, including being hit, as “a matter of course” (Nishida 1994).6 Because of such close emotional bonds between them, scenes of misbehaving students and teachers who sob together saying goodbye on the last school day are often observed. Nishida points out that this contrasts with the case of “lads” at a British school in a working class area, as illustrated by Willis (1977). After they rebelled against the school, they were happy to leave it. 2. One more feature of the Japanese school system is the plurality of criteria for evaluating students. Kaneko (1999) discovered through her classroom observation at an elementary school that there are different strategies among pupils to gain a respectable position in the classroom and they are not limited to academic work. For example, lower-graded pupils positively recognize their teachers’ evaluation in everyday life and react to it accordingly. They try to attain their own positions in the classroom through actively participating in school events or projects, taking responsibility as class representatives, or presenting their talents in some fields such as being good at dealing with computers or handicrafts. In other words, the Japanese school system provides students with diverse ways of being acknowledged and evaluated positively. This is also 6

Although physical punishment is forbidden by law in Japan, it seems to be used at schools. Nishida explains that student acceptance of being hit seems to depend on the closeness of teacher-student relationship. Imazu (1999) states that physical punishment seems to be—despite being officially denied—acknowledged by the majority in public opinion and regarded as the “whip of love”.

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true for club activities or school events. Students who are not able to perform well in academic subjects but are good at sports can enjoy a high status at school due to their talents in a sports club or sports event. Accordingly, studies on club activities in junior high schools (Nishijima et al. 1999) and in high schools (Shiromatsu 1993, 1994) proved that students who engaged in clubs actively are likely to show positive attitudes towards school, even though they do not perform well academically. Clubs contribute by integrating low-achieving students into school life successfully. These features—emotional bonds and the plurality of the evaluation criteria—might contrast with the situation in the German school system. Combe and Helsper (1994), who observed a classroom at a “Gesamtschule” (comprehensive school) in Germany and conducted interviews with a misbehaving student named Tim from Croatia, describe how Tim’s problem behavior arises in a classroom. Tim lives with his mother who cannot speak the German language well and feels overburden by the responsibility for Tim’s education as well as her hard job. Making mistakes in a class and being laughed at by classmates and teachers hurts the self-esteem of a low-achieving student such as Tim. He attempts to take the position of ignoring academic tasks, disturbing the classroom, or exerting violence towards classmates. His homeroom teacher, Gert, regards not only academic work but also social relationships in the classroom as important. However, his image of an ideal student seems to be limited to one type of student, that is a critical student who actively participates in a class and is engaged in student committees such as Rolf, who often becomes a target of violence exerted by Tim. There seem to be few institutionalized systems that reward diverse student talents other than academic work in the German classroom or school. It is also interesting that this misbehaving student Tim tries to build personal and informal relationships with teachers in the classroom (pp. 77–93). Such attempts were always rejected by teachers in the context of the academic purpose of the classes. More noteworthy is that his homeroom teacher, who shows personal interest in his students, invites them to his home, visits parents and plans some events in order to build strong social relationships in his class. This, however, brings more conflicts or an emotional and personal character into relationships between him and (misbehaving) students such as Tim. Moreover, attempts of the homeroom teacher to build close relationships with his students cannot be accepted by them; Tim demands a certain

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distance between him and the teacher because it does not suit the school context from his perspective. Why did the teacher fail to build a positive relationship with Tim? Against the background of such contrasting cases in Japan and Germany, there may be various factors that cannot be identified only according to the studies cited above. Nevertheless, one possible explanation is that the relatively narrow definition of the evaluation criteria in German school culture might gain a more ambivalent character due to a close and positive teacher-student relationship than at a Japanese school with diverse evaluation criteria. One more explanation is that a certain distance, which Tim demanded from the teacher, can mirror the meaning of emotional human relationships in a whole socio-cultural context. Trommsdorff (1984) indicates that the interference of parents in matters of decision-making on a life course tends to be refused by German adolescents, whereas it is likely to be regarded as love and a close relationship by their Japanese counterparts. The distance in human relationships to a certain degree may be needed for adolescents to develop independent identities in a German context. In a Japanese context, it is a relevant condition for being able to build close human relationships towards maturity (see also LeTendre 1996, Rohlen 1996). In this context, demands for personal attention are inevitable and might be accepted more easily. As LeTendre (2000) discovered, Japanese teachers interpret disruptive student behavior as a demand for attention. Contrary to this, Tim’s attempts to get teachers’ attention were often rejected by them and defined as disruptive, in line with the views of American teachers. On these grounds, we may conclude that the Japanese strategy basically works also in cases of adolescents from lower social strata with regard to integration into school life and the transmission of values such as interpersonal harmony. We can therefore assume that this contributes to reducing delinquent behavior among adolescents generally. Nevertheless, even though emotional bonds at a Japanese school integrate low achievers into school life successfully, it cannot compensate them for their inability in academic work. Nishida (1994) described most of these adolescents as dropping out or losing their jobs after they graduate from junior high school. In such cases, junior high school teachers are worried about them but remain helpless.

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3.2.3 Insider perspectives It is now interesting to ask why and how some adolescents—despite the relatively strong integrative power of Japanese schools—commit delinquent actions? Is the strategy to build a strong human bond not effective for them? Let us look at this question from another perspective and move to the third point of “the insider perspective”, that is the motives that misbehaving adolescents assign to their own actions. Important findings with regard to this question can be summarized in three points: firstly, the attraction of deviant actions is the main motive; secondly, such actions are important for adolescent self-identity; and thirdly, delinquent activities occur in the dynamics of activities in peer groups. With regard to the first point, it is critical that young people from lower social strata—as already mentioned—not perceive an academic career or knowledge gained at school as useful. Their life plans differ considerably from those of going to a good school, entering a good university and getting a job at a good company. Therefore, it seems that psychological strain from, for example, an “inferiority complex” or frustration arising from limited academic achievement, which scholars and journalists often infer is a major cause of delinquent behavior, is in fact not the cause of delinquent behavior. An ethnographic study of motorcycle gangs by Sato (1991) explains that one of the important factors that lead the youth to activities of a motorcycle gang, is the attraction of these activities; the play-like quality of the activities was perceived by them as the most exciting and thrilling experience. Once they are less interested in schoolwork, such exciting experiences in their peer groups gain more attraction. Thus, from the perspective of youth, their motive for misbehavior is not from the frustration of being a failure at school, but from the fun of being bad. This was also shown by the study on Buraku youth of Ikeda (1985) with regard to rebellion against schoolteachers, fighting, vandalism and truancy. This motive can be also found among criminal groups of Turkish adolescents as well as hooligans in Germany (Bohnsack/Nohl, in press). Such adolescents seek exciting “action” on the street or in soccer games that contrast with the boring life of monotonous bluecollar labor. Second, deviant activities play a role in the adolescent search for self-identity. Sato (1991) pointed out that the activities of motorcycle gangs have an important significance for adolescent development of

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their self-identity, that is macho identity. The motorcycle gang provides adolescents with a self-image that exemplifies the rough and tough masculinity. After their adolescent “moratorium”, most of the motorcycle gangs members become according to Sato, “ordinary” manual workers. They also know that this moratorium comes to an end at a certain age (mostly 18–20). This interpretation is more valid in the sense that the crime rate of Japanese juveniles falls within the older age sections of youth (see footnote 1). The same is also true for Turkish criminal adolescents in Germany. Bohnsack and Nohl (in press) demonstrate that problem behavior of German and immigrant adolescents in Germany reach its highest point in the middle of their adolescent crisis. After a period of “criminal actions” with peers, they begin to orient themselves to a non-criminal way in which they seek their own individual style of self-fulfillment. Thus, a part of delinquent actions might be interpreted as one aspect of “adolescence” in lower social strata both in Japan and Germany. Third, striving for “action" or, in other words, the seeking of selfidentity seems to occur often in a series of activities in peer groups. Busch (2000) indicates that membership of groups whose group culture is characterized by group solidarity, provocative behavior and risk-taking, strong group boundaries and a hierarchic group structure is connected to delinquent and aggressive behavior. Such features can be also found in groups of motorcycle gangs, which are described by Sato (1991) as well as in peer groups of aggressive immigrant adolescents in Germany studied by Bohnsack and Nohl (in press). Shimizu and Shimizu (2001), who observed immigrant adolescents from Brazil and Indo-China in Japan, report also that some of them form peer groups and rebel against the school or commit delinquent activities. And in this case, it seems to be related to seeking self-identity as a cultural minority whose cultural background is at risk in the context of the dominant majority culture. We therefore can assume that the emotional bonds in human relationships at a Japanese school cannot so easily attract some segments of adolescents such as peer groups, which are not sanctioned by the school.

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4. Summary and Discussion In this article, findings mainly from studies using qualitative approaches were summarized to pose hypothetical viewpoints for further research on adolescent delinquency and its prevention. The core of cultural policies of education and socialization in Japan is characterized by emotional bonds in human relationships in which adult norms and values are transmitted to youngsters. Focusing on adolescents from lower social strata who tend to commit delinquent activities more often than middle-class adolescents, we can assume that the Japanese school system is successful to a certain degree in integrating such adolescents into school life through the wider role of the school and teacher as well as various evaluation criteria at school. On the other hand, the disadvantage youngsters from lower social strata experience in reaching higher educational achievement do not seem to be compensated by the Japanese school system. This is the same situation as in other industrialized societies such as Germany. A widespread notion that such students become delinquent because of frustration or an “inferiority complex” from failure at school has not been proven. It is more likely that delinquent actions arise out of various factors in complicated ways. Due to some disadvantages, lower academic aspirations and/or discrimination, children and adolescents from lower social strata are likely to fail to perform well academically and their motivation at school decreases accordingly. Although some students find ways to do activities at school actively and integrate themselves into the school, there are adolescents who build peer groups not sanctioned by the school and commit delinquent actions because of the attraction of delinquent behavior and/or their demand for a self-identity in adolescence. To return to our interest at the beginning, we can say that the low crime rate of Japanese juveniles can be explained by “Japanese behavior towards children” which works relatively successfully. This might be an advantage of the Japanese school system in comparison to the German school. On the other hand, the pessimistic view within Japan seems to be rather related to “adult norms and values”. In the following last section, we will point out three problems of “Japanese adult norms and values”.

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1. Because of these strong norms shared by adults, Japanese society is also more likely to cause so-called “moral panic” (see also Tokuoka in this volume). And this might contribute to the discovery of “new problems” in children and adolescent behavior. Itô (Watanabe/Itô 1996) argues that the growing incidence of children’s behavior that is regarded by adults as “not desirable” has been defined as a “problem”. Adults expect that “children should go to school everyday happily” and “maintain interpersonal harmony”. But those who do not do this are called “school refusers” or “bullied” students. This also seems to be related to a lack of perspective which takes the attraction of delinquent activities or the seeking of selfidentity as an adolescent motive into account concerning juvenile delinquency in Japan. This may be a side effect of “Japanese adult norms and values” which include a strong belief in how adolescents should be: “Young people should learn social skills for interpersonal harmony and develop personality traits such as endurance and persistence under conditions of hardship and discomfort.” “They should not indulge themselves in material youth cultures or have close boy-girl relationships at an early age.” Nevertheless, such strong norms and values may become a “double-edged sword”. Whereas adult consensus on the importance of interpersonal harmony and efforts can foster emotional bonds and the integration of adolescents into school life, it also helps adults to define the adolescent search for self-identity as “deviant behavior” (see also Toyama-Bialke 2002). Without acknowledging such adolescent demand for self-identity, it is impossible to distinguish between delinquent behavior that is specific only for adolescent periods and that which develops into anti-social deviant behavior continuously past adult age (Petermann 1995, Busch 2000). It is also impossible to support adolescents seeking self-identity in non-delinquent ways. 2. The second problem is that little attention has been paid to social inequality with regard to educational achievement as well as delinquent behavior in Japan. This includes questions such as how Japanese teachers contribute to social reproduction in a classroom, which discriminative or stereotypical views towards students from lower social strata they have and how these affect students. Such questions have been often regarded as taboo in the process of educational expansion for Japanese teachers who place a strong emphasis on the equal treatment of students. Because of the strong

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belief in Japanese “meritocratic” society, little attention has been paid to scholarly work on this issue (Kariya 1995). Japanese teachers do not recognize or pretend not to recognize differences among students according to their family background, although they really do see them (Kudomi 1993, Nishida 1996b). This may differ from Western circumstances. Some ideological premises such as the notion that children are all the same in ability and have the same possibility to develop themselves may play a role and lead to a discrepancy between recognition and action or between levels of recognition. We need further research that focuses on this problem. As demonstrated above, it is likely that adolescent delinquency is related to the problem of social reproduction. If it is strongly believed by adults that school success depends only on student effort to be integrated in school life and improved through hard work, it is likely to be overlooked that students come from diverse family backgrounds. It is necessary to clarify various processes on how students from lower social strata fail to be successful academically. One must identify the various disadvantages of some children and adolescents which may differ depending on whether they come from working-class families, Buraku families, single-parent families, cultural minorities and so forth and meet adequate support measures for each group (Kudomi 1993, Shimizu/Shimizu 2001). 3. In the social context of “moral panic”, the educational system has been criticized for the last two or three decades in public discussion within Japan. The mass media claim that the surge of problem behavior as well as juvenile crime is caused by youth frustration with the oppressive Japanese school culture. This is supposed to be represented by strict school rules, strong control over student behavior by schoolteachers, or old-fashioned values such as an emphasis on endurance and persistence in non-democratic human relations. Added to this, critics argue that the strong academic pressure in a highly competitive Japanese school system intensifies student frustration and that the standardized school curriculum hinders development of student's individuality and freedom. However, those critiques have not necessarily been proven empirically. For example, as already indicated, it is doubtful whether Japanese school is highly competitive (see also Fujita, T. 1996). Moreover, although there is no evidence that indicates direct causal relationships between the alleged surge of delinquency and the alleged problems of the Japanese school system, such critiques

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provide a motive for the ongoing drastic reform of Japanese educational system (see also H. Fujita in this volume). This might undermine the strengths of the Japanese educational system. Added to this, these unproven critiques within Japanese society have been transferred to the international media and have created some notorious images of the Japanese educational system (see also Kreitz-Sandberg 1996). This may deprive other nations of learning from Japan. Recently in Germany, for instance, expanding the role of the school and placing more emphasis on the social aspects of school learning have been discussed. However, a stereotypical understanding of the Japanese system, which the Japanese discussion itself brought about, may hinder Germany from learning from the Japanese example (Schubert 1998). Therefore, it is necessary to identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Japanese system in an international comparison. Because of the limited number of studies that can be referred to in dealing with our interest, we need further cross-cultural research. This would provide us with comparable data between cultures as well as between different sub-groups within a respective culture, especially using qualitative approaches.

5. References Auernheimer, Georg (2000): Schulkonflikte in der Einwanderungsgesellschaft (School Conflicts in the Immigration Society). Migration und Soziale Arbeit 3–4, pp. 36–43. —— et al. (1996): Interkulturelle Erziehung im Schulalltag (Intercultural Education in Daily Life at School). Münster: Waxmann. —— et al. (1998): Wie gehen Lehrer/innen mit kulturellen Differenzen um? (How do Teachers Deal with Cultural Differences?). Zeitschrift für Erziehungswissenschaft 1, pp. 597–611. Ayukawa, Jun (1995): The Construction of Juvenile Delinquency as a Social Problem in Post World War II Japan. In: Holstein, James A.; Miller, Gale (eds.): Perspectives on Social Problems, Vol. 7. Greenwich, Conn.: JAI Press, pp. 311–329. Azuma, Hiroshi (1994): Nihonjin no shitsuke to kyôiku: hattatsu no Nichibei hikaku ni motozuite (Discipline and Education of the Japanese. A Comparison of Development in Japan and the United States). Tôkyô: Tôkyô Daigaku Shuppansha. Beck, Ulrich (1986): Risikogesellschaft. Auf dem Weg in eine andere Moderne (Risk Society. Towards a New Modernity). Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp. Bourdieu, Pierre (1987): Die feinen Unterschiede (Schwibs, Bernd; Russer, Achim Bernd, Trans. “La distinction”). 4. ed., Frankfurt/ Main: Suhrkamp (Original work published 1979).

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Bohnsack, Ralf/Nohl, Arnd-Michael (in press). Jugendkulturen und Aktionismus: Eine rekonstruktive empirische Analyse am Beispiel des Breakdance (Youth Culture and “Actionism“: An Reconstructive Empirical Analysis of the Breakdance Example). In: Merkens, H.; Zinnecker, Jürgen (eds.): Jahrbuch Jugendforschung Vol. 1, Opladen: Leske+Budrich. Busch, Ludger (2000): Jugendcliquen und aggressives Verhalten in der Schule: Die Bedeutung der Gruppenkultur (Peer Groups and Aggressive Behavior in School: The Importance of Group Cultures). Empirische Pädagogik 14, 1, pp. 3–33. Combe, Arno/Helsper, Werner (1994): Was geschieht im Klassenzimmer? (What Happens in the Classroom?). Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag. Crystal, David S./Stevenson, Harold W. (1995): What is a bad kid? Answers of adolescents and their mothers in three cultures. Journal of Research on Adolescence 5, 1, pp. 71–91. Ditton, Hartmut (1993): Bildung und Ungleichheit im Gefüge von Unterricht, schulischem Kontext und Schulsystem (Education and Inequality in the Context of Classroom, School and School System). Die Deutsche Schule 85, pp. 348–363. Engel, Uwe/Hurrelmann, Klaus (1989): Psychosoziale Belastung im Jugendalter: Empirische Befunde zum Einfluß von Familie, Schule und Gleichaltrigengruppe (Psycho-social Strain in Adolescence: Empirical Findings on Influences of Family, School and Peer Groups). Berlin, New York: de Gruyter. Foljanty-Jost, Gesine (2000): Schule und Gewalt in Deutschland und Japan—Problemstand, Analyse und Prävention im Vergleich (School and Violence in Germany and Japan—Problems, Analysis and Prevention in Comparison). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan: Occasional Papers Band 11. Veröffentlichungen des Seminars für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität HalleWittenberg. Fujita, Takeshi (1996): Senbatsu shisutemu to chûgakusei no kyôsô ishiki (The Entrance Exam System and the Competetive Consciousness of Junior High School Students). Tôkyô Daigaku Daigakuin kyôikugaku kenkyûka kiyô 36, pp. 139–148. Fukaya, Masashi (1983): Monogurafu chûgakusei no sekai: Chûgakusei no bukatsudô (Monographs of Junior High School Students’ World: Junior High School Students and School Clubs). Vol. 14, Tôkyô: Fukutake Shoten. Fukuzawa, Rebecca I. (1996): The Path to Adulthood according to Japanese Junior High Schools. In Rohlen, Thomas P./LeTendre, Gerald K. (eds.): Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 295–320. Fuligni, Andrew J./Stevenson, Harold W. (1995): Time Use and Mathematics Achievement among American, Chinese and Japanese High School Students. Child Development 66, 3, pp. 830–842. Gomolla, Mechthild (1998): Institutionelle Diskriminierung in der Schule (Institutional Discrimination in the School). Das Argument 224, pp. 129–143. Heitmeyer, Wilhelm/Olk, Thomas (1991): Individualisierung von Jugend (Individualization of Youth). Weinheim: Juventa. Hess, Robert D.; Azuma, Hiroshi (1991): Cultural Support for Schooling: Contrasts Between Japan and the United States. Educational Researcher 20, 9, pp. 2–8. Hirota, Teruyuki (1998): Kodomo no genzai o dô miruka (How should We Examine Childhood in Contemporary Japan?). Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû 63, pp. 5–23.

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—— (1999): Nihonjin no shitsuke wa suitai shitaka? (Do Japanese Families today Fail to Educate Kids?). Tôkyô: Kodansha. Holtappels, Heinz Günter (1994): Ganztagsschule und Schulöffnung (Full-Day Schooling and Opening the School). Weinheim: Juventa. Hoshino, Kanehiro (1986): Wagakuni no shakai henka to hanzai hikô no sûsei (A Tendency towards Social Change and Delinquency in Japan). Hanzai to Hikô 69, pp. 4–30. IFS-Institut (1998): Jahrbuch der Schulentwicklung (Yearbook on School Development), vol. 10, Weinheim: Juventa. Ikeda, Hiroshi (1985). Hisabetsu buraku ni okeru kyôiku to bunka: Gyôson buraku ni okeru seinen no raifu sutairu ni kansuru esunogurafî (Educational Achievement of Buraku Youth and Its Cultural Background: Ethnography of a Rural Buraku Community and Lifestyle of Youth). Ôsaka Daigaku Ningen Kagakubu kiyô 11, pp. 249–273. Imazu, Kôjirô (1997): “Taibatsu wa hitsuyô da”: Kakusareta otona no jikoai to shihaiyoku (“Physical Punishment is Necessary“: Adults’ hidden Self-love and Desire of Control). In Imazu, Kôjirô; Hida, Daijirô (eds): Kyôiku gensetsu o dô yomuka. Tôkyô: Shinyôsha, pp. 233–258. Ishida, Hiroshi (1989): Gakureki to shakai keizaiteki chii no tassei (Educational Credentials and Socio-Economic Status). Shakaigaku hyôron 159, pp. 252–266. Itô, Shigeki (1997): “Ijime wa konzetsu sarenakereba naranai”: zenhitei no jubaku to katarushisu (“Bullying should be Eradicated”: Magic and Catharsis of the Total Negation). In Imazu, Kôjirô; Hida, Daijirô (eds): Kyôiku gensetsu o dô yomuka. Tôkyô: Shinyôsha, pp. 207–231. Kaneko, Mariko (1999): Kyôshitsu ni okeru hyôka o meguru dainamikusu—kodomotachi no kôdô senryaku to gakkô tekiô (Dynamics of Evaluation in the Classroom—Pupils’ Strategies and Adjustment to School). Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû 65, pp. 69–89. Kariya, Takehiko (1995): Taishu kyôiku shakai no yukue (The Future of Mass Education Society). Tôkyô: Chûô Kôronsha. Klink, Andreas; Wagner, Ulrich (1999): Discrimination Against Ethnic Minority in Germany: Going Back to the Field. Journal of Applied Social Psychology 29, 2, pp. 402–423. Kornadt, Hans-Joachim (1988): Entwicklungsbedingungen unterschiedlicher Aggressivität in Japan und Deutschland: Beitrag des Kulturvergleichs zur Motivationstheorie (Developmental Conditions for Differences in Aggressiveness between Japan and Germany: Contribution of Cross-Cultural Research to Motivation Theory). Psychologische Beiträge 30, pp. 344–374. ——/Trommsdorff, Gisela (1984): Erziehungsziele im Kulturvergleich (A Comparison of Educational Goals). In: Trommsdorff, Gisela (ed.): Jahrbuch für empirische Erziehungswissenschaft. Düsseldorf: Pädagogischer Verlag Schwann, pp. 191–212. —— (1990): Naive Erziehungstheorien japanischer Mütter (Japanese Mothers’ Lay Theories of Socialization. A German-Japanese Comparison). Zeitschrift für Sozialisationsforschung und Erziehungssoziologie 10, pp. 357–376.

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Kreitz-Sandberg, Susanne (1994): Jugend in Japan. Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Adoleszenz in einer „anderen Moderne“ (Youth in Japan: An Empirical Study on Adolescence in “Another Modernity“). Rheinfelden, Berlin: Schäuble Verlag. —— (1996): Suizid bei Jugendlichen in Japan und Deutschland—Ein Beitrag zur kulturvergleichenden Jugendforschung (Suicide in Japan and Germany. A Comparison from the Perspective of Youth Studies). Japan Studien: Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung, vol. 8, pp. 287–318. Kudomi, Yoshiyuki (1993): Yutakasa no teihen ni ikiru—Gakkô shisutemu to jakusha no saiseisan (Living at the Bottom of Affluent Society—School System and Reproduction of Disadvantages). Tôkyô: Aoki Shoten. LeTendre, Gerald K. (1996): Shido: The Concept of Guidance. In Rohlen, Thomas P., LeTendre, Gerald K. (eds.): Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 275–294. —— (2000): Learning to be Adolescent: Growing Up in U.S. and Japanese Junior High Schools. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. Lewis, Catherine C. (1984): Cooperation and Control in Japanese Nursery Schools. Comparative Education Review 28, pp. 69–84. —— (1996): Forstering Social and Intellectual Development: the Roots of Japanese Educational Success. In Rohlen, Thomas P./LeTendre, Gerald K. (eds.): Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 79–97. Matsumoto, Yoshio (1984): Zusetsu hikô mondai no shakaigaku (Handbook of Sociology of Delinquency). Tôkyô: Kôseikan. Metzler, Anne (1999): Jugendkriminalität in Japan im internationalen Vergleich (Japanese Juvenile Delinquency in International Comparison). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan: Occasional Papers Band 8. Veröffentlichungen des Seminars für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. ——/Metzler, Manuel (2000): Wer sind die Täter? Merkmale krimineller japanischer Jugendlicher (Who are the Offenders? Features of Criminal Juveniles in Japan). In Foljanty-Jost, Gesine (ed.): Schule, Schüler und Gewalt: Beiträge zu Deutschland, Japan, China und der Mongolei (School, Students and Violence: Reports on Germany, Japan, China and Mongolia). München: Iudicium, pp. 170–195. Metzler, Manuel (2000): Devianz auf Japanisch—Wissenschaftliche Hintergründe des Verständnisses von Norm und Abweichung (Deviance in Japanese—Scholarly Background for Understanding of Norm and Deviance). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan: Occasional Papers Band 7. Veröffentlichungen des Seminars für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg. Nishida, Yoshimasa (1994): Seito shidô no esunogurafî—kyôiku konnankô ni okeru “tsunagaru shidô” to sono haikei (Ethnography of Student Guidance—“Guidance of Bonding” at one Problem School and its Background). Shakai mondai kenkyû 42, 2, pp. 323–352. —— (1996a): Bunka jutaku-gai no seishun: Teikaisô shûju chiku ni okeru kyôiku chii tassei (Adolescence in “bunka jutaku” Apartments: Educational Achievement in a Low-income Residential Area). In Tani, Tomio (ed): Raifu hisutorî o manabu hito no tame ni (Handbook of Oral History). Tôkyô: Sekai Shisôsha, pp. 149–178.

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—— (1996b): Fubyôdô no saiseisan to kyôshi. Kyôshi bunka ni okeru sabetsusei wo megutte (Reproduction of Social Inequality and School Teacher. Discrimination in the Teachers’ Culture). In Yagi, Tadashi (ed.): Hisabetsu sekai to shakaigaku (World of Discrimination and Sociology). Nishijima, Hiroshi et al. (1999): Chûgakkô seikatsu to bukatsudô ni kansuru shakaigakuteki kenkyû (School Life and Club Activities in Japanese Junior High Schools: A Sociological Study). Tôkyô daigaku daigakuin kyôikugaku kenkyûka kiyô 39, pp. 137–163. Olk, Thomas/Bathke, Gustav-Wilhelm/Hartnuß, Birger (2000): Jugendhilfe und Schule. Empirische Befunde und theoretische Reflexionen zur Schulsozialarbeit (Youth Support and School. Empirical Findings and Theoretical Reflection on Social Work at School). Weinheim: Juventa. Petermann, Franz (1995): Aggressives Verhalten (Aggressive Behavior). In Oerter, Ralf; Montada, Leo (eds.): Entwicklungspsychologie. Weinheim: PVU, pp. 1016–1023. Popp, Ulrike (2000): Gewalt an Schulen als “Türkenproblem”? Gewaltniveau, Wahrnehmung von Klassenklima und sozialer Diskriminierung bei deutschen und türkischen Schülerinnen und Schülern (Violence in Schools as a Problem of Turkish pupils? Level of Violence, Perception of the Social Climate in Learning Groups and Social Discrimination among German and Turkish Pupils). Empirische Pädagogik 14, 1, pp. 59–91. Rohlen, Thomas P.(1996): Building Character. In: Rohlen, Thomas P./LeTendre, Gerald K. (ed.): Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 50–74. Sato, Ikuya (1991): Kamikaze Biker: Parody and Anomy in Affluent Japan. Chicago, London: The University of Chicago Press. Shimahara, Nobuo/Sakai, Akira (1995): Learning to Teach in Two Cultures: Japan and the United States. New York: Garland. Shimizu, Kokichi/Tokuda, Kôzô (1991): Yomigaere kôritsu chûgaku—Amagasaki shiritsu minami chûgakkô no esunogurafî (Public School again—Ethnography of Minami Junior High School in Amagasaki). Tôkyô: Yûshindô. Shimizu, Kokichi/Shimizu, Mutsumi (2001): Nyûkama to kyôiku: Gakkô bunka to esunishitî no kattô o megutte (Newcomer Kids and Education: Conflicts between School Culture and Ethnicity). Tôkyô: Akashi Shoten. Shiromatsu, Ken (1993): Bukatsudô ni kansuru jisshôteki kenkyû (Empirical Study on School Clubs). Kyôikugaku kenkyûu kiyô 39, pp. 129–133. —— (1994): Bukatsudô to seikatsu bunka no kankei ni kansuru kenkyû (A Study on the Relationship between School Clubs and Student Subculture). Kyôikugaku kenkyû kiyô 40, pp. 130–135. Schubert, Volker (1998): Kooperatives Lernen lernen? Zur Diskussion über das Bildungswesen in Japan (How to learn Cooperative Learning. On the Discussion on Education in Japan). Zeitschrift für Pädagogik 44, 3, pp. 397–409. Stevenson, Harold W. et al. (1990): Context of Achievement: A Study of American, Chinese, and Japanese Children. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development 55, pp. 1–116. Tertilt, Hermann (1996): Turkish Power Boys. Zur Interpretation einer gewaltbereiten Subkultur (Turkish Power Boys. Towards an Interpretation of a Violent Subculture). Zeitschrift für Sozialisationsforschung und Erziehungssoziologie 17, 1, pp. 19–29.

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Tobin, Joseph J.; Wu, David Y.H.; Davidson, Dana H. (1989): Preschool in Three Cultures: Japan, China, and the United States. New Haven, London: Yale University Press. Toyama-Bialke, Chisaki (1998): Adolescents’ Daily Lives and Parental Attitudes Towards the School: A German-Japanese Comparative Study. Studies in Educational Evaluation 24, 4, pp. 347–367. —— (2000): Jugendliche Sozialisation und familiäre Einflüsse in Deutschland und Japan (Adolescent Socialization and Family Influences in Germany and Japan). Köln, Weimar, Wien: Böhlau Verlag. —— (2002): Elterliche Erziehungsvorstellungen in Japan und Deutschland. Jugendbilder im Vergleich (Educational Perspectives of Parents in Japan and Germany. A Comparative Study on Conceptions of Adolescence). In Kreitz-Sandberg, Susanne (ed.): Jugendliche in Japan und Deutschland: Soziale Integration im Vergleich. Opladen: Leske+Budrich, pp. 91–115. Trommsdorff, Gisela (1984): Familiale Sozialisation im Kulturvergleich. Japan und Deutschland (Family Socialization in a Cross-Cultural Comparison. Japan and Germany). Zeitschrift für Sozialisationsforschung und Erziehungssoziologie 4, pp. 79–97. ——/Friedlmeier, Wolfgang (1993): Control and Responsiveness in Japanese and German Mother-Child Interactions. Early Development and Parenting 2, 33, pp. 1–14. Tsuneyoshi, Ryôko (1992): Ningen keisei no nichibei hikaku. Kakureta karikyuramu (An American-Japanese Comparison of Human Development. Hidden Curriculums). Tôkyô: Chûô Kôronsha. —— (2001): The Japanese Model of Schooling. Comparisons with the United States. New York: Routledge Falmer. Watanabe, Makoto/Itô, Shigeki (1996): Seito shidô no riron to jissen (Theory and Practice of Student Guidance). Tôkyô: Jusonbo. Willis, Paul E. (1977): Learning to Labour. How Working Class Kids Get Working Class Jobs. London: Saxon House. Yamamura, Yoshiaki (1993): Terebi bangumi ni miru Nihon no kodomokan (Japanese Conceptions of the Child in Television Programs). Rikkyô daigaku kyôikugakkka nenpô 37, pp. 1–14. —— (1995): Media shakai to kodomoron no jirenma: naze kodomo wa mienaika (Dilemma of Media Society and Childhood Discussion: Why are Children Invisible?). In: Kadowaki, Atsushi (ed.): “Ikai” o ikiru shônen shôjo. Tôkyô: Tôyôkan Shuppansha. Yuki, Megumi (1994): Shakaika to raberingu no genshô keitai. Yôchien ni okeru shûdan kategorî no kinô (Primordial Forms of Socialization and Labelling: Functions of Group Categories in a Kindergarden). Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû 55, pp. 91–106.

YOUTH IN CRISIS: PUBLIC PERCEPTIONS AND DISCOURSE ON DEVIANCE AND JUVENILE PROBLEM BEHAVIOR IN JAPAN Annette Erbe

1. Introduction Ever since the 1970s the interested public in Western countries has been exposed to a confusing mix of information concerning Japan. Western scientists have praised the Japanese education system for its high turnout of well-educated, committed, and cheerfully conforming youths, in sharp contrast to the rebellious and violent youngsters in their own countries. And indeed, the academic success of Japanese schooling has been reflected in international achievement tests for math and sciences. At the same time, the mass media in the not so competitive countries has painted a grisly picture of violence and oppression in Japanese schools, with Japanese youths turning on their peers in a vicious and twisted way or taking refuge in unhealthy withdrawal. While the statistics for juvenile delinquency and school violence has shown that Japan has had few problems compared to other industrialized societies, these reports would often be spiced and granted credibility by grim statements from Japanese scholars and experts who blame the education system for all but ruining a whole generation. As a closer look reveals, the foreign media reports actually reproduce the way these issues are presented in the Japanese media. For those without direct access to information on Japan and to Japanese reality, it has been impossible to bring these two pictures together. Could the gap be partly due to the way youth and youth problems are perceived and discussed in Japan? Whereas data and analyses of juvenile problems and delinquency in Japan have recently been made available in Western languages to some degree (Schoolland 1990, Foljanty-Jost/Rössner 1997, FoljantyJost 2000), what has remained mostly obscure is how these issues are

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discussed and interpreted within Japan. This paper attempts to offer some insights into this ongoing discussion on “youth in crisis” that may well have preoccupied the Japanese public to an even larger extent than is the case in other modern societies.

2. Children and Youth as Objects of Public Concern An apprehensive portrayal of youth is certainly no Japanese specialty. In many modern societies the young generation seems to be taken notice of mostly—or even solely—when they misbehave, and the youth appear in public discourse predominantly in connection with violence, crime and other behaviors that threaten the social order. Of course, while attempts are being made to account for such behavior, these negative stereotypes generally grant a rather hostile outlook on youth. As has often been remarked by foreign observers (White 1987), all issues of education and the raising of children in Japan are high on the national agenda and feature prominently in public discourse. A significant portion of newspaper and magazine articles, books, television and radio programs is devoted to educational topics. The very fact that youngsters until their high school graduation, that is eighteen, are generally referred to as kodomo (children) in general discourse can be interpreted as an indication of how far the perceived realm of socializing and educating stretches1. In recent years one could come to the conclusion that the fewer children and youth there are (Japan has one of the lowest birthrates worldwide and is a rapidly aging society), the closer they are under scrutiny in terms of their living conditions and chances for a healthy development, and especially concerning their moral standards, values and behavior. This is accompanied by a comparatively low tolerance for deviation from the social norm. In contemporary Japan, the violation of rules and rebellion against adult society are not seen as an unavoidable or legitimate by-product of adolescence, and the setting of alternative rules in subcultures is not condoned (Metzler 1999). Educational sociologist Tokuoka Hideo argues that in postwar Japan, the attention towards children and their misbehavior grew along 1

While there is a variety of terms, especially legal-professional ones, for children and youth of all ages, these are rarely used in a non-formal context.

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with the stabilization of society and the degree to which society could “afford” to worry beyond the mere necessities of life. The increased concern led to more control and polices activity and, in turn to more registered delinquents. At the same time, relatively minor offenses came to be considered as the first steps to serious delinquency and were therefore subject to stricter monitoring, as has been the case with shoplifting since 1982. While this shift in evaluation has been at least partly responsible for the rising figures of youth delinquency, it has also served to reconfirm the public view that the young generation has been going astray. The same cyclic mechanism can be assumed to have worked concerning the ever younger ages of those arrested or admonished by police—again, the result of a “net-widening” and a reason for growing concern (Tokuoka 2002). The deepening anguish of Japanese society over its youth is reflected in the increasing number of media reports and books published on youth problems (cf. Figure 1). However, while concern about deviant youth has been a characteristic leitmotif of Japanese public discourse over the last three decades, the mode has changed considerably. As educational sociologist Hirota Teruyuki has pointed out, the transformation of the underlying image of children, including those who are “dangerous” or “in danger”, can be related to larger political changes. Until the mid-1970s, all these children were viewed as in need of protection and/or correction by the state, in line with an active welfare state policy. However, after a decade of transition, this system came under attack from several sides during the mid-1980s. On the one hand, a movement for children’s rights and postmodern thinkers rejected the implied image of immature and helpless creatures and criticized the state policy as patronizing and unnecessary. On the other hand, supported by a moral panic following spectacular incidents of youth crime, conservative voices would challenge this policy as being too mild and inappropriate, asking for minors to be made fully accountable to the law and to be treated like adults (Hirota 1998, see Schwarzenegger in this volume).

Figure 1: Books Published on Youth Problems in Japan (School Violence, Bullying, Deviance, Delinquency, School Refusal, Suicide, Withdrawal, Drugs And Others, 1970–2000 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1970

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3. Youth Problems Turned Into School Problems However, in the late 1970s and early 1980s the typical young troublemakers that caught the public attention were no longer members of motorcycle gangs, but high school and middle high school students ganging up against their peers and even teachers or vandalizing their schools (Erbe 1999). The newspapers and magazines were full of sensational reports on how schools tried to cope with their problem students, often calling in the police to handle the situation. While the quality as well as the size of these problems were mild in comparison to other modern societies, especially the United States, the degree of public attention was at least as intense. This shift of focus on youth problems from the streets to the schools reflected the fact that, by then, attending the three-year high school after the nine years of compulsory education had become the norm. For over ninety percent of Japanese youngsters, their life until the age of eighteen was largely ruled by their school. Not only was school the place where one’s success or failure determined life’s chances, it was also increasingly the main socializing agent, regulating students’ lives well beyond the boundaries of school itself and fulfilling tasks such as imparting discipline and moral standards that were formerly expected of parents and local communities (Tokuoka 2002). Thus, the wave of violent incidents, disruption and rebellion at Japanese schools was bound to fuel fears of a loss of authority, and at the same time, to direct public attention towards the country’s schools in a more general way. While some critics accused parents of failing to discipline their children, most—and especially the progressive critics—blamed the pressures of the exam and achievement-oriented education system. They recommended lightening these burdens, reducing class sizes and doing away with overly strict school rules. Instead, schools and the education authorities chose the opposite route to quell such rebellious behavior. Teachers were obliged to enforce school rules more strictly and new rules were often introduced. Schools would employ physically strong teachers, physical education teachers in particular, for the task of “student guidance”, and corporal punishment was supposed to have increased drastically in this period (Erbe 1998). In the short run, these strategies seemed to have worked as statistics by the Ministry of

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Education and police showed a significant decline in incidents of school violence.

4. New Dimensions: The Case of Bullying Openly violent outbreaks at schools had only just vanished from the headlines, however, when a new educational problem emerged. This time, the emphasis shifted from “children as dangerous” to “children in danger”. Educators had pointed for some time to an increase in less direct acts of aggression among students, in less visible ways of hurting others. Such behavior would typically occur out of the sight of teachers, and would include teasing, ostracizing, ridiculing, stealing or hiding personal belongings and sometimes also forthright violence. Often it was perpetrated by a strong child or a group against one classmate that somehow stood out or appeared weak. While such children had traditionally been called ijimekko (bully) or ijimerarekko (bullied child), the reports now included the term ijime (bullying) to refer to the whole setting. While there had been previous reports on incidents of suicide or acts of revenge related to bullying among school children, the causal relation had not been emphasized; it was only from around 1984/85 that bullying came to be associated with death in newspaper reports (Yamamoto Y. 1996). Following the suicide of a girl who in 1985 left a note saying “please stop bullying”, newspapers began to run a series of reports on the plight of the victims and on the frequency of such suffering. The documentation of spectacular cases that led to suicide or mental and physical infliction served to establish the paradigm that a new type of bullying had developed, one that knew no limits, was persistent, cruel, wicked and difficult to recognize. This new quality was contrasted with the so-called “bullying in the old days” that was supposedly of a less serious nature, and even seen as natural and a necessary part of growing up (Monbushô 1984). In April 1985, the Ministry of Education instructed boards of education to conduct studies and set up a commission to survey problem behavior among students. Only two months later, the commission published an urgent appeal to work towards solving such problem behavior. Bullying became a regular topic in the media, and the Ministry released statistics that indicated an epidemic spread of this new phenomenon; for a nine-month period

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in 1985 public schools reported 155,000 incidents. These shocking numbers helped challenge the formerly common perception that some personality traits of the victim invited such behavior (Monbushô 1984). Instead, bullying was now presented as a structural problem, a syndrome of pathological developments in the education system and in society at large. Rapidly, bullying advanced from being a publicly acknowledged educational problem to a social problem, the documentation and analysis of which filled more and more bookshelves (cf. Figure 2). Whereas the general public agreed by then that bullying had gone too far and could not be tolerated, the majority of people asked in surveys thought the families were to blame, rather than the schools. In a nationwide opinion poll of March 1986, 45% attributed the increase in bullying to the fact that “families don’t discipline their children anymore” or to “parents’ overprotection”. Less than 20% thought it was due to school-related reasons such as unenthusiastic teachers, strict school rules or corporal punishment (Asahi Shinbun March 24, 1986). The public discourse, however, soon focussed on the schools and school education, and was dominated by the longstanding confrontation between the Ministry of Education and the Japan Teachers’ Union (Nikkyôso) and their respective followers. Matsunaga Hikaru, the Minister of Education, claimed that teachers had lost their authority and weren’t dedicated to student guidance anymore. In his opinion they failed to teach children social norms and values. He recommended that teachers be reinstated as persons of respect and that moral education be emphasized once again (Sankei Shinbun Nov. 8, 1985). Such attempts were vigorously rejected by progressive critics, who blamed in turn a repressive atmosphere in schools and the widespread use of corporal punishment to discipline students. Children bullying each other were perceived as merely passing on such violence and the intense pressure to conform to strict school rules and stiff competition (Sekai Feb. 10, 1986).

Figure 2: Books Published on Bullying in Japan, And Officially Registered Cases of Bullying (1 unit = 1,000 cases), 1981–2000 160 150 140 130 120 110 100 90 80 70 60 50 40 30 20 10 0

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Bullying was seen as yet another syndrome of “regulated education” (kanri kyôiku) under the Ministry of Education’s control, and traced back to predemocratic and militaristic traditions, granting renewed calls for the decentralization and democratization of the education system (Yagi 1986). In fact, contemporary society as such was held responsible for the bullying phenomenon, and blamed for overemphasizing achievement and conformity while neglecting emotional needs and satisfactory human relationships (Endô 1986, Egawa 1986). Lawyers’ associations and the Ministry of Justice drew attention to the fact that bullying was a form of discrimination and called for more respect for children’s human rights (Yomiuri Shinbun June 6, 1985). Yet another outlook was adopted by the high-profile National Council on Education (Rinkyôshin) that was set up by Prime Minister Nakasone with direct reference to the “desolation of education” as exemplified by student problem behavior. The Council was meant to help his reform initiatives towards deregulation and diminish the influence both of the Ministry of Education and the left-wing educators. Accordingly, in statements on the causes of bullying, Council members, many of them business representatives, blamed both the Ministry of Education for its ideology of overregulating (urusai kanrishugi) and the Left for its overemphasis on uniformity (kakuitsushugi) in education that stifles all individuality (Asahi Shinbun Oct. 23, 1985). Nikkyôso promptly agreed that the state’s control of schools was rightly criticized but roundly rejected the Council’s attack on the credo of egalitarianism, pointing out that bullying was caused, on the contrary, by too much competitiveness and achievement-orientation (Mainichi Shinbun Oct. 28, 1985). What united all combatants in this ideological struggle and the nonaligned public was a growing sense that today’s children were really victims of school and society and had nowhere to turn. Public attention on the bullying phenomenon reached a peak when in February 1986 a middle high school student hanged himself, leaving a letter in which he described his situation as “living hell”, having been persistently bullied by a group of schoolmates for months. Police and media investigations into his case brought to light the ignorance and failure of the school in realizing his predicament, with several teachers including his homeroom teacher having taken part in a mock funeral in his presence. In response, a major national newspaper in one of many similar reactions published an editorial “To You Who Are Being Bullied” begging the unknown victims not to despair, and not to kill

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themselves but to turn to adults for help even if they had not been very helpful in the past (Asahi Shinbun Feb. 6, 1986). To some extent this further fuelled the moral panic that this and previous cases had triggered. Their appeal was heard, if not by the children, then by an overwhelming number of adult readers who responded very emotionally, recalling own painful experiences and pledging sympathy and understanding (Asahi Shinbun Feb. 7, 1986). The general consensus that today’s children were to be pitied (kodomo ga kawaisô) and something was deeply wrong with Japanese schools remained strong and never quite subsided in spite of the swift decline in reported cases of bullying (cf. Figure 2) and a subsequent declaration by the Ministry of Education in 1991 that bullying had ebbed. Such doubts were partly due to the steadily growing number of children who refused to go to school. While analyses of the motives of school non-attendees show that their motives are manifold, this problem was mostly discussed in connection with and as a result of bullying (Erbe 1999).

5. The Second Wave of Bullying When suicides connected with bullying began appearing in the news again in 19942, the Japanese public was soon convinced that the problem had never really been solved, but simply had become more secretive and difficult to detect. Renewed attention in the media heightened public awareness and led to more urgent inquiries at schools along with modified criteria3 and—one can assume—in turn to more cases reported to the Ministry of Education (cf. Figure 2). This second wave of bullying, with registered cases reaching a peak of around 60,000 in 1995 and thus only a good third of the previous peak, led, however, to an unprecedented and sustained peak of public attention. As one intensely publicized suicide of a middle school boy in 1994 showed, 2

The second series of ‘bullying suicides’ began in December 1994. A middle school student who killed himself had described in his farewell letter to his parents how four schoolmates had repeatedly beaten him, and forced him to steal a total of 1.1 million yen from his parents and grandmother. Within the next twelve months, four to nine suicides by schoolchildren were reported to be due to bullying and widely publicized (Itô 1997: 212). 3 From 1994 on Ministry of Education numbers have reflected not only cases reported by schools but also by individual teachers or students.

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victims who took this extreme step would sometimes endure severe bullying or even criminal acts by their peers for a long time before they put an end to their suffering without ever having confided in their parents or teachers. Several large-scale student surveys were undertaken and invariably showed that more than a third of all students had been bullied once or more in their school life. Such experiences would often be limited to short periods or singular incidents and consisted mostly of teasing or name-calling, exclusion from the group or verbal threatening (Erbe 1999). However, under the conditions of moral panic that was now even more pronounced than in the mid-1980s, these two sides of the picture (the few extreme cases and the many minor ones) seemed to meld together in public discourse into the terrifying impression that significant numbers of Japanese children lived in fear and terror of their peers, yet were suffering in silence and on the brink of taking their lives. It almost seemed as if society wanted to make up for years of not taking proper notice by an intensified soul-searching and an activism that might be perceived as counterproductive in triggering more suicides4, and sometimes verged on the hysterical. A few days after the suicide case mentioned above, an unknown middle school student sent a fax to a TV station announcing that she would kill herself on her birthday. The prefectural board of education immediately asked all schools to interrupt lessons and to call conferences to search for the girl. Several newspapers and TV stations published appeals to her, begging “zettai ni shinaide hoshii” (we absolutely don’t want you to die) (Yamamoto A. 1996). In another incident a student called a counseling hotline and left a message on the answering machine saying he was bullied and wished to die. Education authorities called on all elementary and middle schools and played the recording to the teachers in the hope that they might recognize the boy’s voice. A press conference was called and newspaper carried appeals such as “rusuban no kimi—shinanaide!” (you from the answering machine, don’t die!). (Asahi Shinbun Dec. 21, 1995). 4

As the specialist in youth suicide, Inamura Hiroshi, had pointed out that intense media coverage of such incidents can produce a ‘suicide fashion’ among psychologically unstable adolescents; the so-called Werther effect, that had led to two peaks in suicide statistics in the seventies and eighties, following the suicides of pop idols. Inamura also questioned the simple attribution of suicides to bullying as a single cause (Inamura 1995).

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Education authorities from the local boards of education to the Ministry of Education established study groups, expert commissions and advisory bodies. As the schools’ reactions had formerly been criticized as being too soft and engaging in cover-ups in order to avoid a bad reputation, they were now urged not to react but to act. In face of public criticism and pressure from the educational administration, schools had to realize that any hesitation in exposing incidents of bullying could become the focus of intensive media investigations, and complied more eagerly than ever before by conducting anti-bullying campaigns and monitoring students repeatedly with questionnaires on ijime. In some cases, they made students write diaries about their school life regularly, that were then read by the homeroom or guidance teacher in order to detect any signs of bullying (Asahi Shinbun Feb. 5, 1996). The Minister of Education, Okuda Mikio, declared bullying to be “the most serious problem facing education today” and called on all sides for cooperation, taking the unprecedented step of approaching, amongst others, leaders of numerous teachers’ organizations (Japan Times Weekly Feb. 19–25, 1996). Nikkyôso, in an even more radical turn of policy, had declared in September 1995 its intention to end its long strategy of fundamental opposition to the Ministry of Education, noting that the urgency of the bullying problem made it necessary to cooperate. Unofficially this change of paradigm was seen by many as an attempt to halt the steady decline of membership, particularly among younger teachers, and the recognition that by continuing the union’s radical stance of antagonism, it might lose even more influence on education. However, in hindsight this strategy has not proven successful; Nikkyôso could not return to its old position of power, paralleling the decline of its most important ally, the Socialist Party. It is worth noting, though, that both the ministry and the union referred to the bullying problem in order to legitimize major moves of policy change that might otherwise have been difficult to perform without a loss of face. The crumbling of the antagonism between the Ministry of Education and left-wing teachers led by Nikkyôso was not the only aspect in which the social background to the second wave of bullying and the ensuing second wave of debate differed from the first. In 1985/86, Japan was still extremely successful economically and while public sentiment was critical towards the education system and society, it was not generally pessimistic in its outlook. A decade later, however, the second wave of bullying—or rather, of its percep-

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tion—struck a society that was already deeply unsettled by the burst of the bubble economy, the worsening recession and the threat of unemployment, a string of political scandals and new forms of proof of widespread corruption. It also coincided with the devastating results of the Hanshin earthquake and the deeply disturbing implications of the Aum Shinrikyô terrorist attacks. All of these added up to a bleak picture of contemporary society and its prospects. Public opinion surveys regularly conducted by the Prime Minister’s Office showed that between 1989 and 1997, the number of people thinking that Japanese society was going in the wrong direction rose from 25% to 72%. Those who thought it was moving in the right direction dwindled from 49% to a mere 13% (Kato 1998: 1). The re-emergence of bullying fit into this fin-de-siecle mood and drove home the message that not even the children were living in a sheltered world. At the same time it coincided with the fiftieth anniversary of the end of the second world war, and was often discussed in connection with reflections on postwar Japan. For progressive critics, the existence of bullying, still thought of as a Japanese idiosyncrasy, went on to show that Japan had not shed her feudal past (Fukaya 1995) or militaristic traditions (Inoguchi Kuniko in Asahi Shinbun Feb. 28, 1995). They pointed out that respect for the individual and for human rights had not yet been firmly established in Japanese society. Political scientist Inoguchi defined human rights violations as the common basis of bullying and war crimes, that is a complete breakdown of humanity, albeit on a very different scale. In the same interview, Asada Akira agreed that Japan had not really become a modern civil society, but was still at heart a village based on the pre-modern group principle. Contemporary bullies and Japan as an aggressor in the war shared the same characteristic: diffuse or a lacking sense of responsibility. The criticism of Japanese group mentality is a common ingredient of progressive analysis of Japanese society and blamed for a host of problems, especially in education (Horio 1997). In an interesting variation on that theme, the Central Council of Education, an advisory body to the Ministry of Education, also mentioned the lack of respect for the individual as a cause, but blamed this on the principle of dôshitsu (same quality, sameness). The council thus referred to and reinterpreted the egalitarianism (byôdôshugi) defended by progressive educators as equal to the kakuitsu (uniformity) principle of postwar education. It was thus in line with earlier and ongoing attempts to promote the cause of liberalization and differen-

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tiation in the education system by linking the two terms uniformity and egalitarianism as if they were synonymous and of the same root. The principle of uniformity, however, was not introduced to school life by left-wing teachers, but by traditionally minded teachers, who had received their training before the war and believed in the enforcement of discipline and order, best ensured by organizing school life in-groups. Such teachers also founded the Puro Kyôshi no Kai (Association of Professional Teachers) in 1970, in opposition to the teachers’ unions. The Association has received a lot of public attention and also frequently comments on issues of educational reform or student problem behavior. Members believe that postwar democracy with its “exaggerated” respect for individuality and human rights has relinquished schools to anarchy. From their point of view, in the postwar spirit of freedom, equality and respect for individuality children are allowed to do as they want and nobody dares to teach them morals or rules. It is all the more ironic that the very group that rejects teaching individuality blames a tendency of egalitarianism (byôdôshugi), “that is, the urge for everyone to be the same” among children for the bullying phenomenon (Kawakami 1997:562). Again, this can be seen as a deliberate attempt to discredit a central concept of postwar education by redefining it. The Association accuses the Ministry of Education of having subscribed to an ideology of individuality and freedom, clearly shown in its recent attempt to enhance a relaxed education system focussing on the students’ motivation, with the teacher as a mere “supporter” (Kawakami 1997). Meanwhile, other conservative critics made their own sense of bullying and the characteristics of Japanese society. In a book by psychiatrist Doi Takeo and literary scholar Watanabe Shôichi, the authors also lay the blame for the worsening bullying problem on the postwar (left-wing) ideology of equality. Under this ideology all feelings of envy were taboo, and thus found an outlet in bullying those who had more or did better than the others. The authors go on to compare Japan not to the bullies, but to the bullied child. They resent the postwar pacifism and beautification of defenselessness that makes the victims of bullying so helpless and Japan so weak in international relations. Both lack the fighting spirit, and apparently this spirit is “what we lost after World War II” as the English subtitle to their book states (Doi/Watanabe 1995). Many prominent right-wing commentators share their disgust at a supposedly predominant culture of the weak. Such a tendency is usually attributed to the fact that children are

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nowadays raised almost exclusively by their mothers, leading to a dominance of feminine influence in contemporary Japan. As Abe Jôji would have it, bullying is really the characteristic of girls; it would be more natural for boys to be engaged in a fair fight (Abe 1995). In a collection of statements on bullying in the monthly magazine Voice, Ishihara Shintaro, now governor of Tokyo, condemned the exaggerated pacifism pertinent in postwar Japan and declared that victims had to fight back for themselves (Ishihara 1996). Nishio Kanji felt the overemphasis on human rights was to blame since it prevented adults from giving the bullies what they deserved (Nishio 1996). Oda Susumu, a psychology professor who regularly comments on youth crime and violence in the mass media, in an earlier essay even went so far as to declare that “human rights killed Ôkochi” (the boy whose suicide marked the peak of this “second wave” of bullying, cf. footnote 2) (Oda 1995). For Nishibe Susumu this was yet more proof of the “convulsive humanism” that has plagued postwar Japan (Nishibe 1996) and Matsumoto Ken’ichi roundly declared that there was no need for democratic education (Matsumoto 1996). While it is true that in the 1990s the idea of bullying as violating human rights and a form of discrimination has been incorporated into official statements as well as the call for respect for each individual, further accusations against the Ministry of Education of succumbing to left-wing values seem unjustified. (As the emergence of the “next” educational problem showed, the Ministry would soon resort to more traditional ideas.) It should be noted here that such an outspoken political stance as analyzed above is not characteristic of all segments of the discussion on bullying. The typical popular book on bullying will actually be anything but dogmatic. Rather, they often list concisely the whole range of causes that have been raised in the public debate so far: from media influence, the school system, the nuclear family, working mothers, professional housewives, and absent fathers to urbanization, value change and various other socio-cultural factors, often not even attempting to integrate all these into one model or to actually prove their causality5. 5

Even in a book that has a more scientific approach than most general readership publications, the author, an expert on clinical psychology and counseling, lists the background to bullying and violence as the following: 1) representations of violence in the media, 2) human distrust stemming from the rise of compensated dating (enjo kôsai), 3) easy access to drugs, 4) media and technology that reduce human contacts,

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Instead, authors offer their choice of solution without further reference to the aforementioned, such as teaching children more empathy (omoiyari), or teaching them respect for individuality, granting them more leisure, talking to children, trusting children, caring more about children, being a model to children and so forth (for example, Egawa 1986, Noda 1995). Yet another type of literature was and is concerned solely with practical advice for children, parents and teachers on how to avoid or cope with bullying. And it goes without saying that especially the second wave of bullying also induced a large number of scientific and empirically grounded works and surveys, and a lot of serious research had been done that examined the bullying problem and its background (Taki in this volume, and the works of Morita Yôji). However, these have been neglected here, as they are not the ones that have shaped public discourse and the general perception of what was going on in Japanese schools. The image of education and the world Japanese children lived in representative of public discourse in the mid-1990s was instead the one shown in the aforementioned books and eyewitness accounts that depicted schools and the human relations there in dramatic terms. Titles and headlines such as “The Archipelago of Bullying” (Ijime Mondai Kenkyûhan 1995) or “The Bullying Society” (for example, Nihon Kodomo o Mamoru Kai 1995, Fukaya 1996, Kamata 1998) were manifold and suggested that, not only was bullying at school reflecting a characteristic/trait of Japanese society, but also a pervasive pattern of student behavior. The fact that neither was bullying limited to Japanese schools nor was it even more extensive than in 5) familial violence against children, 6) loss of free space due to urbanization, 7) easy access to knives and other weapons, 8) educational competition in a meritocratic society, 9) an increased learning load and decreased lesson time, 10) overworked teachers that are difficult to approach, 11) teachers who try to avoid student guidance and similar management tasks and are demotivated and passive, 12) a lack of discipline and learning endurance at home, and 13) the growing number of parents (my italics, A.E.) who neglect or abuse their children, and others. Under the latter heading, the author lists well-educated women who are frustrated at being ‘solely‘ in charge of their children or frustrated at their limited career chances due to having children, and the growing number of working and career-oriented mothers who don’t have time for their children, and for such reasons passively reject or actively mistreat their children. Last but not least, there is the growing number of women who have affairs at the workplace, their values systems undermined by the daily media coverage and fiction on celebrities’ extramarital affairs and divorces (Matsubara 1998: 4–8).

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other modern industrialized societies, though mentioned in media reports, never really became a part of the picture. As Itô Shigeki has pointed out in an opposition movement to scientific attempts to create a definition for this term, the label bullying has come to be used ever more comprehensively and without differentiation; its domain has expanded, a process that may be inherent to social problems. In the light of intensive media coverage, more and more incidents of unpleasant human interaction are perceived as bullying. While heightened public awareness must be evaluated positively, and this development may also provide the chance for victims to speak out and gain due attention, it also has its risks. Such domain expansion may lead to the decontextualization of a phenomenon. In the case of bullying, with its highly emotional impact, a lot of different behaviors or phenomena have been assembled under this term and are no longer examined for their specificities. And while the impression grows that bullying is everywhere and ever worsening, no one ventures to question such assumptions or to differentiate between acceptable and non-acceptable behavior anymore (Itô 1997). If one looks at newer media representations of the status quo at Japanese schools, it is certainly true that bullying has come to be seen as a matter of course.

6. Characteristics of the Discussion in the Late 1990s Since around 1998, the bullying phenomenon has again lost some ground in public attention to other, more urgent problems. This time, it is not so much due to a belief that the number of officially registered cases really represents a significant decline. Rather, the public has been shocked by new or renewed problems of a different kind. The characteristic of public discourse on youth problems is that it no longer centers on one problem, but has diversified (cf. Figure 3).

Figure 3: Books Published on Selected Problem Behaviors in Japan, 1980–2000 class breakdown 140

impulsive violent behaviour ('snapping') bullying student violence

120

school refusal/ non-attendance youth suicide

100

youth crime and deviance

80

60

40

20

0 '80

'81

'82

'83

'84

'85

'86

'87

'88

'89

'90

'91

'92

'93

'94

'95

'96

'97

'98

'99

2000

Note: For each year, all books were counted that carried the respective key word in their title. If more than one of the key words appeared in a title, the book was counted in all of those categories. Thus, the actual number of publications is slightly less than all categories add up to. Source: NACSIS online catalogue, author’s own computation.

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In 1997 it turned out that it had been a fourteen-year-old who had killed an eleven-year-old and beheaded him (for details see Fujita in this volume). A student who fatally stabbed his teacher for having reprimanded him for being late in 1998, and a string of knife incidents at schools in the aftermath of this case, a sharp rise in the cases of school violence, and a number of crimes committed by middle school students from June 1999 to February 2000 were followed by the murder of a married couple by a high school student in Aichi prefecture, the hijacking of a bus by an unemployed youth in Saga prefecture in March 2000, and other incidents. Under the impression of such a wave of violence and heinous crimes, usually depicted as unforeseeable and without detectable reasons by formerly “normal” youth (Matsubara 1998), the public mood changed from pitying children to being terrified of them. Those voices that called for punishment grew louder (cf. Schwarzenegger and Tokuoka in this volume), and schools and the education system were once again condemned for their presumed failure to teach children moral values and norms. Flashy book titles such as “The Schools are Committing Suicide” (Tsukahara 1997) or “How to Survive Everyday School Life—Without Dying, Without Killing, Without Being Killed” (Miyadai/Fujii 1998), even though they are at the extreme end of the scale, illustrate the kind of “school bashing” that has been prevalent in public discourse in recent years (Fujita in this volume). While the Ministry of Education and other institutions keep pointing to the responsibility of families for socialization and discipline, it seems as if a fundamental public frustration with schools and education, and their resistance to change that has built up over a long time and has been reinforced by every new example of problem behavior, now finds an outlet in heaping all the blame on them.

7. Conclusion Whereas with a long string of problem behaviors Japanese society was first concerned with manifest behavior such as delinquency and outright violence, the public gaze later turned to hidden acts of malice such as bullying or even non-behavior such as school-refusal and withdrawal, and finally to attitudes rather than behavior as expressed in the growing concern for Japanese youths’ lack of dreams and aspirations, apathy and ignorance to the importance of life itself, and their

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assumed inability to tell right from wrong, before being worried about very tangible and visible acts of violence again. Parallel to this attempt to get close up and look “into the heads” of young people, the focus widened to encompass not only a few troublemakers but gradually the whole age group, postulating for each problem that “now it can happen to anyone”, be it bullying, school refusal, suicide, or serious crime. The causes to which youth problems are attributed and accordingly the remedies sought, vary greatly depending on the political and ideological camps as could be expected. The prevalence of certain patterns of explanation and argumentation may grow or fade reflecting the hegemony of these camps. However, across all frames of interpretation, the tone is invariably deeply alarming and pessimistic. Those refuting the virulence of the crisis are few in number and remain largely unheard. Apparently it suits all sides to keep deviance and delinquency forever high on the agenda of public discourse, whatever their statistical ups and downs. In fact, the theme of “youth in crisis” seems to lend itself to emphasizing and legitimizing all sorts of otherwise contested claims. It should not be insinuated, however, that these issues are merely used for other ends and purposes. Those who make use of them are certainly outnumbered by those genuinely concerned. Indeed, an unchanging high level of attention for and constant public debate on youth and youth problems may be a worthwhile model for other societies that face swift social changes and challenges. However, we should be aware of the fact that, in spite of being envied for low rates of youth crime and a largely conforming, “socially functioning” young generation, Japanese society prefers to always assume and be prepared for the worst. Keeping this in mind could make it a little easier to make sense of the disparate pictures mentioned in the beginning.

8. References Abe, Jedi (1995): “Ijime” kô—hahaoya no teguchi (Reflections on “Bullying”—the Methods of Mothers). Voice Mar. 1995, pp. 142–44. Asahi Shinbun Feb. 28, 1995: Shirîzu rekishi ninshiki o tou: “Ijime to sensô” o kangaeru (Series on Historical Awareness: Reflections on “Bullying and War”). Doi, Takeo/Watanabe, Shôichi (1995): Ijime to netami. Sengo minshushugi no otoshigo. What We Have Lost After World War II. (Bullying and envy. The Side Effects of Postwar Democracy). Tôkyô: PHP Kenkyûjo.

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Egawa, Binsei (1986): Ijime kara manabu—nozomashii ningen kankei no ikusei (Lessons from Bullying—Fostering Desirable Human Relationships). Tôkyô: Dai Nihon Tosho. Endô, Toyokichi (1986): Ijime kara no dasshutsu (Escape from Bullying). Tôkyô: Nihon Hôsô Shuppan Kyôkai. Erbe, Annette (1998): Bringing Violence at Japanese Schools into Focus. In: Trommsdorff, Gisela, Friedlmeier, Wolfgang, and Hans-Joachim Kornadt (eds.): Japan in Transition. Social and Psychological Aspects. Lengerich et al.: Pabst Science Publishers, pp. 231–242. —— (1999): Schikane, Gewalt und Schulverweigerung an japanischen Schulen. Eine Bestandsaufnahme (Bullying, Violence and School Refusal at Japanese Schools. An Inventory). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan Bd. 4, hg. v. Gesine Foljanty-Jost. Halle: Martin-Luther-Universität Halle Wittenberg. Foljanty-Jost, Gesine/Rössner, Dieter (eds.) (1997): Gewalt unter Jugendlichen in Deutschland und Japan: Ursachen und Bekämpfung (Juvenile Violence in Germany and Japan: Causes and Countermeasures). Unter Mitarbeit von Britta Bannenberg und Annette Erbe. Baden-Baden: Nomos. Foljanty-Jost, Gesine (ed.) (2000): Schule, Schüler und Gewalt: Beiträge zu Deutschland, Japan, China und der Mongolei (Schools, Students and Violence: Reports on Germany, Japan, China and Mongolia). München: Iudicium. Fukaya, Kazuko (1996): “Ijime sekai” no kodomotachi—kyôshitsu no shin’en (Children of a “Bullying World”—The Abyss in the Classroom). Tôkyô: Kaneko Shobô. Hafeneger, Benno (1995): Jugendbilder. Zwischen Hoffnung, Kontrolle, Erziehung und Dialog (Images of Youth. Between Hope, Control, Education and Dialogue). Opladen: Leske + Budrich. Hirota, Teruyuki (1998): “Kodomo no genzai” o dô miru ka (How Should we Examine Children and Childhood in Contemporary Japan?). Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû, vol. 63, pp. 5–23. Horio, Teruhisa (1997): Gendai shakai to kyôiku (Contemporary Society and Education). Tôkyô: Iwanami. Ijime Mondai Kenkyûhan (1995): Ijime rettô: Heisei ijime jitsurei fairu (The Bullying Archipelago: a Case File of Bullying in the Heisei Era). Tôkyô: Shinkôsha. Inamura, Hiroshi (1995): Kodomo no jisatsu ryûkô to masukomi hôdô no kanren (Children’s Suicide Fashions and their Relation to Mass Media Reports). In: Inamura, Hiroshi; Yukio Saitô (eds.) Ijime jisatsu. Gendai no esupuri, bessatsu, May 1995. Tôkyô: Ibundô, pp. 80–85. Ishihara, Shintarô (1996): Hitori de teikô suru shika nai (Fighting Back alone is the only Way). In: Tokushû Heisei “ijime” hakusho: shi ni isogu kodomotachi, Voice May 1996, pp. 72–73. Itô, Shigeki (1997): “Ijime wa konzetsu sarenakereba naranai”—zenhitei no jubaku to katarushisu (“Bullying has to be Rooted out Completely”—the Spell and Catharsis of Total Negation). In: Imazu, Kôjirô; Hida, Daijirô (eds.), Kyôiku gensetsu o dô yomu ka. Tôkyô: Shin’yôsha, pp. 207–31. Kato, Akihiko (1998): Structure of Social and Political Consciousness in the 1990s: On the Social Psychological Causes of the Negative Image of the Times. Unpublished manuscript (paper presented at the 5 Meeting of the German-Japanese Society for Social Sciences, Waseda University, Sept. 1998.

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Kamata, Satoshi (1998): Ijime shakai no kodomotachi (Children of the Bullying Society). Kôdansha bunkô. Tôkyô: Kôdansha. Kawakami, Ryôichi (1997): Jiyû no kakudai ga sara ni ijime o zôka saseru—gakkô no wakugumi no naka de antei o (Expansion of Liberty leads to further Increase in Bullying—Towards Stability in the Framework of Schools). Nihon no ronten 1997 (Issues of Debate in Japan 1997), Tôkyô: Bungei Shunju, pp. 562–65. Matsubara, Tatsuya (1998): Futsû no ko ga furuu bôryoku. Ijime, bôryoku no shinri to yobô, shidôhô (The Violence that Ordinary Children Commit. The Psychology of Bullying and Violence, their Prevention and Guidance Methods). Tôkyô: Kyôiku Kaihatsu Kenkyûjo. Matsumoto, Ken’ichi (1996): Minshu kyôiku wa iranai (We don’t need Democratic Education). In: Tokushû Heisei “ijime” hakusho: shi ni isogu kodomotachi, Voice May 1996, pp. 81–83. Metzler, Manuel (1999): Devianz auf Japanisch. Wissenschaftliche Hintergründe des Verständnisses von Norm und Abweichung (Deviance in Japanese. Scientific Background of an Understanding of Norm and Deviation). Japanstudien. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien, Vol. 11. München: Iudicium Verlag, pp. 165–191. Miyadai, Shinji/Fujii, Seiji (1998): Gakkôteki nichijô o ikinuke—shinazu, kurosazu, kurosarezu (How to Survive Everyday School Life—without Dying, without Killing, without Being Killed). Tôkyô: Kyôiku Shiryô Shuppankai. Monbushô (1984): Jidô no yûjin kankei o meguru shidôjo no shomondai (Various Problems of Guidance Occuring in Connection with Student Friendships). Tôkyô: Monbushô. Nihon Kodomo o Mamoru Kai (Japanese Society for the Protection of Children) (ed.) (1995): “Ijime shakai” o yomitoku: Kodomo ni totte sengo 50 nen to wa nan datta no ka (Kodomo hakusho) (Making Sense of the “Bullying Society”: What did the 50 years of Postwar Mean for Children? (White paper on children)). Tôkyô: Sôdo Bunka. Nishibe, Susumu (1996): Keiren suru hyumanizumu (A Convulsive Humanism). In: Tokushû Heisei “ijime” hakusho: shi ni isogu kodomotachi, Voice May 1996, pp. 88–97. Nishio, Kanji (1996): Tenkô no susume (A Recommendation for Changing Schools). In: Tokushû Heisei “ijime” hakusho: shi ni isogu kodomotachi, Voice May 1996, pp. 77–79. Noda, Aiko (ed.) (1995): Kodomo o ijime kara sukuu tame ni (To Save Children from Bullying). Tôkyô: Nihon hyôronsha. Oda, Susumu (1995): “Jinken” ga Ôkôchi o koroshita (“Human Rights” killed Ôkôchi). Shinchô 45 + 2/1995, pp. 44–51. Schoolland, Ken (1990): Shogun’s Ghost: The Dark Side of Japanese Education. New York: Bergin & Garvey. Sekai Feb. 10, 1986: Shinpojiumu “Taibatsu, ijime” no gen’in to kaiketsu (Symposium: Causes of and Solutions for “Corporal Punishment and Bullying”). Tokuoka, Hideo (2002): Jugendpolitik und Jugendprobleme in Japan. Maßnahmen und ihre Auswirkungen im Wandel (Youth Policy and Youth Problems in Japan. Changing Countermeasures and their Effects). In: Kreitz-Sandberg, Susanne (ed.): Jugend in Japan und Deutschland. Soziale Integration im Vergleich. München: Iudicium, pp. 227–246.

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Tsukahara, Masahiko (1997): Gakkô wa jisatsu suru (Schools are Committing Suicide). Tôkyô: Shinjusha. White, Merry (1987): The Japanese Educational Challenge. A Commitment to Children. New York and Tokyo: Kodansha International. Yagi, Kôsuke (1986): “Ijime” no imi (The Meaning of “Bullying”). Serial in 7 parts, Mainichi Shinbun Osaka evening editions, Jan. 1–March 13, 1986. Yamamoto, Atsufumi (1996): Fukuoka Shirojima chû ijime jisatsu jiken—nani ga kaiketsu shita ka. (The Bullying Suicide Incident of Shirojima Middle School in Fukuoka—What solved it?). Gekkan shônen ikusei 1996/6, pp. 8–13. Yamamoto, Yûji (1996): Gensetsuteki jissen to âtikyurêshon—ijime gensetsu no hensei o rei ni (Discursive Practice and Articulation: An Analysis of Discursive Formations of “Ijime”). Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû, Vol. 59, pp. 69–88.

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CHANGES IN VALUES AND LIFE ORIENTATION AMONG JAPANESE YOUTH Atsushi Kadowaki

1. Introduction The twentieth century was marked by the emergence of huge nations with unprecedented economic and military power based on developments in science and technology. It was a period in which military power was an accepted means of invading and dominating other countries, culminating in two world wars and, in the ultimate act of violence, the deployment of nuclear weapons against humanity. Even today, the economic and military race among countries continues unabated. With more than six billion human beings on earth at the beginning of the twenty-first century, humankind is confronted by many difficult problems and has reached a critical crossroad in human history. The twenty-first century will be plagued by numerous challenges, including the increasing global population, food shortages, the exhaustion of underground resources, environmental pollution due to the consumption of fossil fuels, and ongoing racial and regional conflict. Our failure to solve these problems in the twentieth century increases the pressure on our children to find solutions and to redefine society. In order for mankind to survive in the face of these problems, our existing values and lifestyles must evolve from those espoused in the twentieth century. It cannot be taken for granted that the young generation can discover such new values and manage their society based on lifestyles that embrace these values. In the context of this critical outlook, this paper presents the results of the following three surveys. 1. “Survey of the Life and Values of Youth in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area” (abbreviated as the “Tokyo Youth Survey”), a survey of approximately 2,000 male and female youth aged between 15 and 29

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years living in the Tokyo metropolitan area. The Bureau of Citizens and Cultural Affairs, Metropolitan Tokyo from 1976 to 1997 conducted this tri-annual survey, when it was discontinued due to financial constraints. This report is based on the results of all eight surveys (Tôkyô-to Seikatsu Bunka-kyoku 1976–1997). 2. “World Youth Survey,” a survey of male and female youth aged between 18 and 24 years from various countries. The Youth Affairs Administration, Management and Coordination Agency have conducted this survey every five years since 1975. The countries polled vary from one survey to the next. This report is based on the results of the Fifth World Youth Survey, which was conducted in 1995 in 10 countries (Japan, England, Germany, France, Sweden, South Korea, Philippines, Thailand, Brazil and Russia) (Sômu-chô 1996). 3. “Basic Survey of Youth in Japan” (abbreviated as the “Japan Youth Survey”), a survey conducted every five years with males and females aged between 9 and 24 years and parents with children aged between 9 and 15 years in Japan conducted by the Management and Coordination Agency. This study reports the results of the second survey conducted in 2000 (Naikaku-fu 2001).

2. Comparison of Satisfaction with Life and Evaluation of One’s Country According to the Japan Youth Survey conducted in October 2000, more than 63% of the youth responded that they are satisfied with their current lives. On the other hand, the number of young people who responded that they are not satisfied with the current state of politics and the social system was 67 % and 62%, respectively. Table 1 shows the degree of dissatisfaction with life expressed by Japanese youth compared with that of youth from other countries, based on the results of the World Youth Survey.

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Russia

Brazil

Thailand

Philippines

S. Korea

Sweden

France

Germany

USA

Japan

Item

England

Table 1: Level of Youth Satisfaction with Various Aspects of Life (in %)

Family life

45.1 50.9 58.1 52.9 60.0 67.2 37.7 63.2 80.3 77.8 44.4

School life

31.1 51.7 49.2 34.0 36.2 48.8 29.9 68.5 83.4 59.5 43.0

Work life

16.2 45.5 48.4 49.6 50.9 46.9 27.4 48.6 55.2 60.1 36.4

Friendships

64.1 70.6 79.5 64.2 73.0 80.1 64.2 77.5 89.0 77.5 60.7

Town/village of residence*

36.8 54.1 56.7 24.8 48.5 56.6 20.1 81.2 76.3 64.7 52.2

Nation*

43.5 43.1 31.4 44.6 23.5 64.6 19.0 36.9 62.7 21.3 5.1

Happiness*

37.6 48.8 29.3 31.7 38.4 60.2 33.0 66.0 61.5 44.1 27.1

Notes: 1) The ratio for items marked with * was calculated as follows: “Town/village of residence”: the ratio of subjects who responded “I like the town/village where I live” on a scale of 1–5; “Nation”: the ratio of subjects who responded with “Satisfactory” or “Slightly satisfactory” on a scale of 1–4; “Happiness”: the ratio of subjects who responded “I am happy” on a scale of 1–4. 2) The ratios for all other items (that is, not marked with *) represent the ratio of subjects who responded “Satisfactory” on a scale of 1–4. Source: Fujita 1996: 14.

Based on an analysis of these results, Fujita (1996) has classified the following groups: a) High-level group 1 (traditional-type society): Thailand, Philippines and Brazil b) Low-level group 1 (transitional-type society): Russia c) Low-level group 2 (economy-driven society): Japan, South Korea and Germany

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d) Middle-level group (advanced market-type society): United States, England and France e) High-level group 2 (welfare-type society): Sweden The following conclusions can be drawn from this data: 1. The level of youth satisfaction is higher in countries such as Thailand, Philippines and Brazil where the transition to an industrial society, which emphasizes scientific technology and the economy, is occurring slowly and where the family, local area, school and workplace are still “community-based”. 2. The level of youth satisfaction is lowest in countries such as Russia whose economic market is poorly developed, despite progress in industrialization. 3. The level of youth satisfaction increases in proportion to the degree of industrialization and development of the economic market. 4. The level of youth satisfaction is even higher in countries such as Sweden, which have curbed the tendency towards excessive industrialization and market development and prioritized social welfare. Table 2 shows a comparison by country of the level of youth dissatisfaction towards their own country.

Dissatisfied + Slightly dissatisfied Dissatisfied

Russia

Brazil

53.4 55.4 67.7 52.8 75.5 34.1 79.6 63.1 37.1 78.3 92.6

15.9 30.3 46.9 21.0 29.2 11.4 31.5 49.3 Slightly dissatisfied

Thailand

Philippines

S. Korea

Sweden

France

Germany

England

USA

Japan

Table 2: Youth Dissatisfaction Towards their Respective Countries (in %)

5.4

62.6 71.6

37.5 25.1 20.8 31.8 46.3 22.7 48.1 13.8 31.7 15.7 21.0

Source: Fujita 1996: 31.

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In Russia where the lowest level of youth satisfaction towards their country was reported, the level of dissatisfaction is highest. In Thailand and Sweden where a high level of youth satisfaction was reported, on the other hand, the level of dissatisfaction is low. In Brazil, Philippines, England and France where the level of youth satisfaction towards their own country is relatively high, however, the level of dissatisfaction is high. These results suggest that there is not necessarily a positive correlation between the level of satisfaction towards everyday life and the evaluation of the present state of one’s country. Therefore, we shall examine what the youth in the countries surveyed perceive to be the problems in their respective countries. The results are shown in Table 3. These results show that the ratio of respondents who perceive problems in their own country is smallest in Japan. Compared to Thailand and Sweden where the youth reported a high level of satisfaction with their lives and a low level of dissatisfaction towards their own country, few young Japanese perceive problems with the way things are. This finding suggests that young Japanese have a lower level of interest in society than youth of other countries. We have reviewed the current status of young Japanese with respect to the level of satisfaction with their lives and interest in society in comparison with that of youth of other countries, based on the results of the World Youth Survey. It is apparent that although the Japanese youth are relatively satisfied with their everyday lives, they are still less satisfied with their lives than the youth of other countries. On the other hand, it was shown that young Japanese are not especially dissatisfied with their country. Of the countries surveyed, the Japanese ratio of respondents who perceive problems with their own country is the smallest. Next, we shall trace the changes in the social attitudes of young Japanese over the past 20 years based on the results of the Tokyo Youth Survey.

USA

England

Germany

France

Sweden

S. Korea

Philippines

Brazil

Russia

Importance attached to status/family lineage

20.5

32.6

30.2

19.5

15.5

11.9

71.8

27.1

9.8

20.0

22.9

Sex/racial discrimination

24.0

71.9

54.4

44.8

44.1

36.1

23.7

21.6

16.0

30.6

10.5

Gap in educational background

53.8

49.5

33.6

47.2

34.3

24.5

75.9

38.1

33.3

25.1

27.9

Too wide gap between rich and poor

15.7

58.4

63.0

39.5

62.9

29.6

68.2

52.9

60.6

58.3

46.8

Disturbance of public order/morals

8.0

44.9

49.2

24.0

21.4

31.2

40.0

52.7

46.4

44.2

57.9

Difficulty in finding work/high unemployment

12.3

61.0

82.5

51.0

85.0

83.3

48.3

60.5

42.1

47.8

43.6

The “right” actions are not taken

35.6

48.2

45.2

46.8

35.2

28.3

55.4

41.1

15.0

42.2

35.7

Diligence does not pay

30.3

46.2

38.8

25.9

54.3

48.2

53.8

28.8

23.7

47.1

40.8

Opinions of the youth are not reflected

22.0

51.0

42.1

35.4

36.7

48.4

21.6

30.0

43.9

24.6

32.7

Social welfare is inadequate

50.4

47.8

57.8

40.2

21.1

34.7

64.4

20.2

39.5

39.2

37.3

Apathy towards environmental destruction

50.9

59.4

55.5

53.6

49.6

51.3

42.2

54.1

42.6

33.0

44.2

Note: Since the ratio of those who responded that “People in an organization can only perform their duty in a mechanistic manner” was low (<30%) in all countries, this item was omitted from the table. Source: Fujita 1996: 32.

Thailand

Japan Environment

Norms

Status

Structure

Table 3: Youth Perception of Problems in their Respective Countries (in %)

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CHANGES IN VALUE AND LIFE ORIENTATION

3. Changes in Youth in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area As stated previously, the changes in young people in the Tokyo metropolitan area will be analyzed on the basis of the results of the Tokyo Youth Survey. This survey traced changes in youth personality types based on differences in value-consciousness. Figure 1 shows the fluctuations in the number of members of the different types. Figure 1: Shifts in Personality Types of Young People (Overall)

1976 (N=1,656)

36

1979 (N=1,941)

37

1985 (N=1,697) 1988 (N=1,587) 1991 (N=1,472)

20

24

30

17

23

33

28

23

21

26

25

25 16

24

29

Autonomous

18

21

33

1982 (N=2,025)

Non-confrontational

Malcontent

Steadily Achieving

19 25

32

15

1994 (N=1,542)

25

34

24

17

1997 (N=1,482)

26

33

23

18

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

100%

The following is evident from Figure 1: 1. In the 20 years from 1976 to 1997, a decrease in the “steadily achieving” and “autonomous” types was observed. In addition, a corresponding increase in the “non-confrontational” and “malcontent” types was seen, with the “malcontent” type displacing the “steadily achieving” type as the most common personality type. These trends were common to both males and females. Overall, these results indicate that the values of youth have changed from (a) “conforming to social norms” to “rebelling against social norms” and from (b) being “self-oriented” to “followers”.

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2. In terms of the degree of change, 1976 to 1985 was a period of rapid change whereas changes after 1988 were gradual or even showed a slight reversal. This suggests that at the time when the bubble economy burst in the 1990s and the subsequent recession occurred, there were both intrinsic and extrinsic factors that caused changes in the youth. The “malcontent” type is currently the predominant personality type. A lack of sociability and a strong distrust of others, including surrounding adults characterize it. The fact that this type has become the most common means that, in general, the sociability and/or social competence of the youth has diminished and their distrust of others has increased. In addition to questions regarding the actual lives of young people, the Survey of Young Japanese asked various questions concerning such topics as the level of satisfaction with life, social consciousness and lifestyle orientation. If the changes observed in the answers and shifts in personality type are taken together, the changes in young Japanese over the past 20 years can be summarized as follows: 1. Young Japanese are moderately satisfied with the material aspects of their current lives. 2. They embrace considerable dissatisfaction with the current state of politics and with the social system. 3. They have a strong distrust of the older generation that operates this kind of society. 4. However, they do not display any will or energy to revolt against adults and reform society. Similarly, 5. they do not display any intention to work together in generating a new set of values or lifestyle. 6. Instead, most Japanese youth spend time with a small number of people (friends, boy/girlfriends) with whom they get along well, or 7. Or they create themselves an environment surrounded by only what appeals to them (“my favorite world”) and conduct their lives within this world. Of course, not all Japanese youth are like this, even though the number seems to increase recently. There are also young people who exert themselves on behalf of others by performing volunteer activities. These youngsters use their abilities and resources and study hard in order to start up new businesses. However, the images described above reflect the tendencies of the youth polled in this survey. Re-

CHANGES IN VALUE AND LIFE ORIENTATION

83

gardless of their internal world, it can only be concluded that their actions serve to perpetuate conservative overtones in society.

4. Three Keywords that Characterize Young Japanese Recently Since 1992, when the bubble economy burst, three keywords—freeter, parasite single and social competence—have been used to describe remarkable social phenomena observed among young Japanese. The three words were created by Japanese sociologists and marketers. Briefly, these Japanese English or Japanese words have the following meanings: Freeter, an abbreviation of “free arbeiter,” refers to a person who takes up casual work in a carefree manner. Strictly speaking, the word is a composite of English and German. In Japanese, “freeter” corresponds to “shinsotsu mushoku” or “recent graduate with no job.” As the Japanese term implies, “freeter” refers to those people who do not actively seek employment and enter society without taking up fixed employment. Despite having graduated from high school or university, “freeters” opt for a free-and-easy lifestyle, supported by casual work with no more than 800 Yen income per hour. These young people who do not have any inclination to find a steady job are frequently observed among graduates of academic high schools in large cities. This observation is supported by the results of a survey of graduates of Tokyo metropolitan high schools, which showed that 20% of graduates aspire to become a “freeter.” The number of university graduates who aspire to become “freeters” also shows an upward trend and one that is expected to continue in the future. It has been reported that as many as 1.5 million youth currently fall into this category. The social background behind the increase of “freeters” is the decrease in the number of new job openings due to the prolonged economic slump. However, the prominence of recent beliefs (for example, “I do not want to do a job that I don’t like,” “I can live without having a steady job these days,” or “I want to give priority to what I want to do rather than work when I am young”) is also an important factor in the upsurge of “freeters” (Honda 2001). The term “parasite single,” created by the sociologist Yamada Masahiro, has become widely used in reference to members of the young generation who enjoy their single marital status while continuing to live with their parents and receive partial financial support from them.

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Typically, these individuals fail to become independent and do not marry, even after the age of 30. According to Yamada’s estimate, the number of “parasite singles” is more than 10 million. The social background behind the increase in “parasite singles” is a widespread desire amongst young Japanese to avoid the hardships associated with moving out of the family home and becoming independent of parents. The rise in “parasite singles” has also been suggested as one of the main reasons for the continuing fall in the birth rate in Japan (Yamada 1998). Finally, “social competence,” a term created by the author in 1999, is defined as the ability and aptitude to manage and create a society by connecting people with each other. “Social competence” also refers to the desire to change society for the better, the ability to conceptualize a better society and the ability to achieve this goal. In recent years, it has frequently been pointed out that the young generation in Japan lacks sociability. However, what the youth and children of today lack is not sociability but a desire to become actively involved in the management of society and instigate social change as well as the necessary ability and aptitude. The social background behind the disappearance of social competence amongst Japanese youth is the insufficient interaction with others—the most important factor in human development—due to urbanization, mechanization, emphasis on fulfilling educational opportunities and privatization (Kadowaki 1999). It is difficult to estimate how many young people lack social competence. However, if the fact that the voting rate amongst people in their 20s in Tokyo Metropolitan City is less than 20% is any guide, there is no doubt that the number of youth lacking social competence is quite significant. The above account has described three major social phenomena that emerged after the demise of the bubble economy in 1992, namely an increase in “freeters,” an increase in “parasite singles,” and the erosion of “social competence.” If the implications of these phenomena are analyzed from a different perspective, it can be said that the increase in “freeters” represents a “notable detachment from work” and alienation from the principle of meritocracy. The increase in “parasite singles” represents a “progression in the detachment from the family” and a breakaway from autonomy; while the erosion in “social competence” represents “an acceleration in the detachment from politics” and a degeneration in the self-governing ability of individuals or citizenship.

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In other words, these social phenomena that have recently become prominent amongst Japanese youth can be regarded as eroding the foundation of the social principles that contribute to and underpin the progress of modern industrial society. If so, these phenomena may represent the seedlings of new principles for constructing society. Does the young generation in Japan really search for a new set of values? The next section will consider this question based on the latest survey data.

5. New Life and Value Orientation in Japanese Youth In this final section, I shall examine the new value orientation in Japanese youth based on the data obtained in the “Second Japan Youth Survey” conducted by the Management and Coordination Agency in October 2000. In order to examine the new life and value orientation evident among Japanese youth, all subjects in this survey were asked 17 questions relating to their sets of values using a multiple-choice format. The responses were then analyzed using multivariate analysis. Ten items were identified as the core of the new life orientation as shown in Table 4. The results of the first and second surveys, which were carried out in 1995 and 2000 respectively, are shown in Table 4. The “category scores” representing the degree to which new life values take on specific characteristics—the higher the score, the closer the alignment with the characteristics of the new values—are also shown. These ten items can be interpreted to mean that, in the society of tomorrow, differences in ability, gender, nationality and race will no longer be issues. Instead, there is a perception or value orientation that it is desirable for people’s lives to be more focused on giving each other a helping hand. Based on this interpretation, I have called the new life and value orientation, which is currently emerging among Japanese youth, the “decent society orientation.” In this orientation, individuals would not spend energy on pitting their abilities against each other or competing against each other in terms of their achievements or performance. Instead, people’s way of life would be geared towards utilizing their own abilities to help each other.

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Table 4: Items of the New Life-Value Orientation Survey year

1. In order for everyone on earth to survive, we must be tolerant of what we each want to do. 2. In the future, we must be actively responsible for the disposal of garbage and the beautification of the local area and so forth. 3. If you notice someone in trouble, you should offer your assistance without being asked. 4. In the future, men should place more value on the family and the local area than on work. 5. We should not do things that human beings should not do, no matter what the reason. 6. You should not prevent someone from trying to be happy, just because he or she has a different way of thinking from your own. 7. If a foreigner moved into your neighborhood, you would like to develop a close friendship with him/her, just as you would if the person was Japanese. 8. There is more to a “happy life” than just getting married and raising a family. 9. Men should also take an active rolein the care of the elderly. 10. It is OK to marry regardless of nationality if the two parties concerned agree.

1995 (%)

2000 (%)

Category score

29.6

22.2

2.587

63.2

47.6

0.567

28.7

50.4

0.405

52.5

42.4

0.404

57.3

54.3

0.388

61.8

55.5

0.290

54.0

47.9

0.245

46.2

39.6

0.062

æ

43.5

0.035

54.0

53.0

0.016

Source: Kadowaki 2001: 274.

Now, how many young Japanese espouse this new life-value orientation? While detailed data is not shown here, I estimate that 21% of males and females aged between 15 and 24 years favor this new lifevalue orientation. Even if they do not necessarily have to take any concrete action in order for these new values to be adopted, it is esti-

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mated that approximately 1 in 5 young people in Japan support the new life-values and desire these values to be implemented (Kadowaki, 2001).

6. Summary and Discussion Based on the data obtained from representative youth surveys conducted in Japan, I have reviewed changes in young Japanese over the past 20 years with the significant social phenomena and the new value-orientation, which have recently become apparent amongst the young generation. The recent behavior of young Japanese and the attributes evident in their underlying values and emotions can be roughly summarized as follows. 1. The Japanese youth are considerably dissatisfied with the present state of society in Japan and the way that society (that is,the political system) is managed. However, they are satisfied with their current materially wealthy lives and try to avoid being actively involved in the management and reform of society. (That is, there is an increase in the number of people with no political party affiliation.) 2. Although young Japanese enjoy a materially wealthy life, they themselves did not generate the wealth; they feel emptiness because they are merely consumers of the wealth generated by their parents’ generation. 3. In order to fill the gap in their minds created by their perception that they are merely consumers in a consuming society with no real feeling that they are living fulfilling lives, young Japanese turn to delinquency and crime, become engrossed in TV games, music and/or comics, or shut themselves in their own world. 4. Inside the minds that express this behavior, there is a heightened distrust of others and, embedded in this, there is increased apathy towards others. This predisposition further aggravates the disinclination of youth to interact with society. 5. These recent significant inclinations among young Japanese are manifestations of specific social phenomena, namely, an increase in “freeters” and “parasite singles,” and a decline in “social competence.” 6. The behavior of the youth, which is manifested in the form of these phenomena, erodes the values underpinning modern industrial soci-

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ety as a whole. There is no doubt that among the young generation there is a vague feeling of skepticism, weariness and aversion to industrial society. 7. A decent-society orientation has begun to emerge amongst young Japanese as a new life-value that replaces the life-value underpinning industrial society. The economic depression that began in the mid-1990s combined with the political confusion that seemed to encircle it has produced a thick cloud of uncertainty over the future of Japan. It is evident that bold reforms are needed to resolve this situation. However, Japan today currently lacks a strong leader and the situation is increasingly taking on the properties of a deadlock. It can be said that, under these conditions, the Japanese youth feel more resigned, expend an enormous amount of energy and money on material things and meaninglessly whittle their time away. How can we encourage young people who have given up on both themselves and the future of Japan to channel their youthful energy into reforming and rebuilding Japanese society? My personal view can be summarized by the following two ideas: First, adults should recognize the significance of realizing the new life-values that have started to emerge among Japanese youth. To this end, the older generation should, in tandem with the young generation, initiate actions by doing whatever it can, however it can. Second, the social competence of the young generation should be nurtured and developed, because the responsibility of Japanese society will fall on their shoulders in the future. To nurture and develop social competence in the youth of today is the only option, because it is they who will bear the burden of society in the future. Briefly, this social competence will equip them with the ability to create, manage and reform their society. The Japanese Ministry of Education has established a new “comprehensive learning” section, which is devoted to experience-based learning as part of the compulsory curriculum from the third year of primary school to the third year of high school. It started in the 2002 school year, and it is imperative that we pour our energy into nurturing the social competence of the young generation by ensuring that this experience-based learning will become a success.

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7. References Fujita, Hidenori (1996): Seikatsu sekai no hen’yo to seishônen no kachikan (Changes in the Living World and the Outlook on the Life of Youth in Japan), In: Sômuchô Seishônen Taisaku Honbu (ed.), Dai 5 kai sekai seinen ishiki chôsa saibunseki hôkokusho (Report on the Detailed Analysis of the Fifth World Youth Opinion Survey), Tôkyô: Sômu-chô, pp. 11–37. Honda, Yuki (2001): Kôsotsu shûshoku to furiitaa no genjo. (The Current Situation of High School Graduates and Freeters), Gendai no kôtô kyôiku, No. 427, pp. 59–64. Kadowaki, Atsushi (1999): Kodomo no shakairyoku (The Social Competence of Children), Tôkyô: Iwanami. Kadowaki, Atsushi (2001): Seishônen no shakai hyôka to ‘atarashii seikatsu kachi shikô’ no bunseki (An Analysis of the Youth’s Evaluation of Society and ‘New Life-Value Orientations’), In: Naikaku-fu Seisaku Tôkatsukan (ed.), Dai 2 kai seishônen no seikatsu to ishiki ni kansuru kihon chôsa hôkokusho (Report of the Second survey of the Lives and Consciousness of Youth), Tôkyô: Naikaku-fu Seisaku Tôkatsukan, pp. 266–281. Naikaku-fu Seisaku Tôkatsukan (ed.) (2001): Dai 2 kai seishônen no seikatsu to ishiki ni kansuru kihon chôsa hôkokusho (Report of the Second Survey of the Lives and Consciousness of Youth), Tôkyô: Naikaku-fu Seisaku Tôkatsukan. Sômu-chô Seishônen Taisaku Honbu (ed.) (1996): Dai 5 kai sekai seinen ishiki chôsa saibunseki hôkokusho (Report on the Detailed Analysis of the Fifth World Youth Opinion Survey), Tôkyô: Sômu-chô. Tôkyô-to Seikatsu Bunka-kyoku Fujin Seishônen-bu Kikaku-ka (ed.) (1976–1997): Daitoshi seishônen no seikatsu kachikan ni kansuru chôsa (Survey on the Lives and Values of Youths in Big Cities). Tôkyô: Tôkyô-to Seikatsu Bunka-kyoku Fujin Seishônen-bu Kikaku-ka. Yamada, Masahiro (1998): Parasaito shinguru no jidai (The Age of the Parasite Single), Tôkyô: Chikuma.

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CHANGES IN SCHOOL ENVIRONMENT AND DEVIANCY— A SURVEY ANALYSIS AND AN INTERVENTION PROGRAM FOR SCHOOLS Mitsuru Taki

1. Japanese Problem Behavior and its Character The term “problem behavior” can be defined as delinquency or deviant behavior as seen in Japanese schools. The Ministry of Education and Science in Japan annually announces the statistics on problem behavior: ijime (bullying), futôkô (absence from school), bôryoku kôi (violence) and so on (Monbushô 2001). All of them have been urgent problems with no sign of improvement for the last twenty years. Problem behavior in Japan is not considered as pertaining specifically to children with problematic backgrounds, but rather to those with ordinary backgrounds. We often say “Bullying can happen at any time, at any school and among any children.”1 We may say there are a few cases concerning children with particular background experiences such as child abuse, a dysfunctional family, an aggressive temperament and so on. However, there are many other cases that cannot be explained by such factors. Using a case study method, we can find many possible factors to explain the cause of the relevant cases. With regard to bullying behavior, for example, some cases emerge from conflicts among peers or with teachers. Others come from frustration in family or school life. It is too difficult to identify only one factor as a cause of problem behavior. Yet it is very easy to find such factors as the cause of bullying even among ordinary children with no experience of problem behav1

See the figures in the appendix, which are based on the data of a Japanese survey on stress and problem behavior that has been presented twice a year since 1997 by NIER. Samples are made up of approximately 5,500 children from the fourth grade in twelve primary schools to the third grade in six junior high schools in the metropolitan area of Tokyo.

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ior. Even if we can identify only one factor as the cause of an incident, we can hardly conclude that it is a common cause to cover other cases. It seems as if we are in a labyrinth.

2. The Explanatory Model Including Stress as an Exacerbating Factor It is difficult to find a solution based on the use of a single causal model. Causes of incidents are sometimes complex or synergic with several factors. Our hypothesis is that multiple factors, including stress as an exacerbating factor, lead to problem behavior. Taki (1992) and Taki (1996) focus on stress as the primary factor that explains bullying, as shown according to follow up surveys of panel data. Taki (1998) points out a correlation among stressor, stress and problem behavior. The National Institute for Educational Research (NIER) (Kokuritsu Kyôiku Seisaku Kenkyûjo 2001) also discovered the correlation among stressor, stress and problem behavior in a recent comparative study between Japan and Australia2. Figure 1 shows the relation between four types of stress and the experiences of isolating, ignoring and calling names as typical bullying behavior. Four stress-scales such as physical stress, apathy, aggression and depression are scored on the questionnaire based on twelve items of stress feelings as shown in Table 1.

2

The Japanese figures come from June 2000 data for the survey mentioned above. The Australian survey with the same questionnaire translated into English was presented in June and December 2000 in collaboration with P. Slee at Flinders University in Australia. Samples were made up of approximately 2,500 children from the fifth to the tenth grade in four primary schools, seven secondary schools and four junior high schools in the Adelaide metropolitan area and its rural surroundings.

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Figure 1: The Level of Stress According to the Frequencies of the Experience of Being Isolated, Ignored and Called Names Japan

Australia

3

3

4

physical stress

5 6

4 5 6

depression stress

7 8

7 8

aggression stress

9 10

9 10

apathy stress

11 12

11 12

More than once/week

2-3times /month

once or twice

never

More than once/week

2-3times /month

once or twice

never

Table1: Four Stress Categories and the Questionnaire Items Type of stress

physical stress

depression stress

aggression stress

apathy stress

Items (each is scored from 1 to 4) I feel sick and tired I get sick a lot I get headaches I get depressed I worry about things I feel very lonely I get irritated easily I get angry easily I feel like shouting at others I don’t have much energy I don’t feel interested in things I can’t concentrate on studying

Figure 2 indicates the correlation between four types of stress and the experience of stealing, kicking and hitting harshly as violent behavior; Figure 3 shows the feeling of “I am enjoying school” as a substitutable item for truant students.

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Figure 2: The Level of Stress According to the Frequencies of the Experience of Stealing, Kicking and Hitting Harshly (Intentionally) Japan

3

Australia

3 physical stress

4 5

4 5

depression stress

6 7

6 7

8

aggression stress

8

9

9

10

10

apathy stress

11 12

11 12

More than 2-3times / once/week month

once or twice

never

More than 2-3times / once/week month

once or twice

never

Figure 3: The Level of Stress According to the Level of the Feeling of “I am enjoying school” Japan

3

Australia 3 physical stress

4 5

4 5

depression stress

6 7

6 7

8

aggression stress

8

9

9

10

10

apathy stress

11 12

11 12

Yes, very much

Yes, a little

Yes, very much

Yes, a little

These three figures indicate that stress is an important factor of any problem behavior. I strongly emphasize that Japanese children with problem behavior feel all types of stress; they feel not only aggression, but also physical stress, apathy and depression. There is a difference in comparison with the Australian data. In Japan, even such aggressive behavior as violence cannot be explained by aggression stress alone. In Europe, bullying used to be considered aggressive behavior ex-

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95

pressed by children with aggressive tempers or cultures and so on.3 Such a hypothesis, however, does not explain Japanese problem behavior. Strictly speaking, stress is the most important factor in explaining any problem behavior in Japan. Table 2 shows the correlation between four types of stressor and four types of stress. Those stressor categories such as teacher, peer, study and family are scored based on the questionnaire items on stressful experiences as shown in Table 3. It indicates that studying is the greatest stressor in both Japan and Australia and that Japanese children feel more stress from peers than their Australian counterparts. Table 2: The Correlation Coefficients Between Stress and Stressor Japan

stressor: teacher 0.2742 physical stress p=0.000

stressor: peer 0.3259 p=0.000

stressor: study 0.4042 p=0.000

stressor: family 0.3458 p=0.000

depression stress aggression stress

0.2994 p=0.000 0.3239 p=0.000

0.4214 p=0.000 0.4358 p=0.000

0.3969 p=0.000 0.4000 p=0.000

0.3678 p=0.000 0.3962 p=0.000

apathy stress

0.3238 p=0.000

0.3751 p=0.000

0.5639 p=0.000

0.4198 p=0.000

stressor: teacher physical stress 0.1619 p=0.000 depression 0.0667 stress p=0.000

stressor: peer 0.1914 p=0.000 0.3630 p=0.000

stressor: study 0.3074 p=0.000 0.3196 p=0.000

stressor: family 0.2607 p=0.000 0.3131 p=0.000

aggression stress apathy stress

0.3329 p=0.000 0.1990 p=0.000

0.3433 p=0.000 0.4569 p=0.000

0.2920 p=0.000 0.2391 p=0.000

Australia

3

0.2474 p=0.000 0.2485 p=0.000

For example, Olweus (1993) offers this hypothesis.

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Table 3: Four Stressor Categories and the Questionnaire Items Type of stressor

stressor teacher

stressor peer

stressor family

stressor studying

Items (each is scored from 1 to 4) Teachers tell me off without listening to me Teachers don’t treat me fairly Teachers take a personal interest in me Classmates put me down because of the way I look Classmates put me down because of my school marks Classmates call me names I can’t understand my lessons I get low test results Teachers ask me questions I can’t answer I get nagged in my family In my family too much importance is placed on doing well at school My family expects too much of me

3. How Can We Reduce Problem Behavior as Seen in Japan Recently? As we saw above, the level of stressor affects the level of stress. Therefore, the level of stress causes the frequency of problem behavior. However, there is room for further discussion. Stressful feelings might be influenced not only by stressful experiences, but also by the coping factors that deal with opinions, tolerance and so on. If children are tolerant enough, they feel less stress in highly stressful situations. If children are able to manage their stress, they can express less problem behavior in spite of facing a high degree of stress. Japanese children feel a lot of stress through personal interactions with others, especially with peers. If children can develop their interactive ability with peers, problem behavior can be reduced. NIER suggests a program that requires the full involvement of the school and it is called the Japanese Peer Support Program,4 designed to help children develop those abilities. 4

Though our program is inspired by Peer Support (Counseling) in Canada and Australia, we have not developed a Peer Supporter or Peer Counselor System because

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The program consists of two parts. The first part involves basic social skills training to encourage children’s motivation to interact with others. The second part concerns school activities for older children to help others. The activities in the second part are the main process for developing social ability in children. The training in the first part is the preparation or warm-up for the second part. The program is not aimed at changing children through training only. We make sure that the combination of basic social skills training and activities in helping others are crucial for children to gain a sense of competence. Although there are many styles of “peer support” in the world, we consider our program a Japanese program because it focuses in the second part on the Japanese style of school activities. Japanese schools have many traditional activities for helping others. Children used to achieve a sense of competence through these activities. However, the problem is that teachers have not been able to manage and maintain such activities recently. One of the reasons is that children have changed in such a way that they have become less concerned about others. The lack of peer groups in communities has probably led to those changes. Children cannot learn in an interactive way or develop their social skills due to a lack of play activity with peers. As a result, most children are reluctant to join traditional activities voluntarily. Those activities have recently not worked at developing social ability, and so we find problem behavior displayed more often than before. To reduce recent problem behavior, the Japanese Peer Support Program has been developed (1) in order to patch up the missing experience with peer groups by offering “social skills training” in the first part and (2) in order to reconstruct Japanese traditional activities for children to achieve a sense of competence in the second part. Through both parts in combination, children can develop their motivation and ability to have interactive relationships with others and avoid problem behavior.

there are big differences in the school system and student culture between Japan and European countries. Our model is also inspired by Japanese traditional group work activity.

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4. Conclusion All developed countries have similar problems with adolescent deviancy. It is often mentioned that such problems have similar causes and that similar intervention can be effective in all countries. However, Japanese problem behavior is less physically violent than in other countries such as Australia because of culture and tradition. Although the stress model presented here can be applied to Australian children, the type of stress that has the greatest effect differs between the two countries. The correlation between types of stress and stressor is also different, which means that successful intervention should be different. The idea of the Japanese Peer Support Program is more suitable for Asian countries with a group-preference tradition than for European countries with an individualist tradition. This view is clearly shown through the following expression: “The sense of competence that children gain reflects the way society acquires its peace”.

5. References Monbushô (2001): Seito shidô-jô no sho-mondai no genjô to Monbushô no shisaku ni tsuite (Current State of Issues in Student Guidance and the Measures of the Ministry of Education). Tôkyô: Monbushô. Kokuritsu Kyôiku Seisaku Kenkyûjo (2001): Sutoresu chekku risuto o katsuyô shita seito shidô no kokoromi (An Attempt at Student Guidance using a Stress Check List). Tôkyô: Kokuritsu Kyôiku Seisaku Kenkyûjo. Olweus, Dan (1993): Bullying at School: What we Know and What We can Do. Oxford, UK and Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishers. Taki, Mitsuru (1992): ‘Ijime’ kôi no hassei yôin ni kansuru jisshôteki kenkyû (Empirical Study on the Occurrence of ‘Bullying’ Behaviour). Kyôiku shakaigaku kenkyû, 50, pp. 366–388. —— (1996): ‘Ijime’ o sodateru gakkyû tokusei (Characteristics of School Classes that Produce Bullying), Tôkyô: Meiji Tosho. —— (1998): Kodomo no sutoresu to sono yôin (Children’s Stress and its Causes), Kenkyû kiyô No. 36, pp. 1–11. Tôkyô: Kokuritsu Kyôiku Seisaku Kenkyûjo. —— (ed.) (2000): Pîa sapôto de hajimeru gakkô zukuri: chûgakkô-hen (School Management Starting with a Peer Support Program: Junior High School Edition). Tôkyô: Kaneko Shobô. —— (ed.) (2001): Pîa sapôto de hajimeru gakkô zukuri: shôgakkô-hen (School Management Starting with a Peer Support Program: Elementary School Edition). Tôkyô: Kaneko Shobô.

CHANGES IN SCHOOL ENVIRONMANT AND DEVIANCY

6. Appendix

Figure a: The Rate of Being Isolated, Ignored and Called Names (Junior High School, in %) 100%

80%

35,9

34,6

32,1

33,5

33,0

33,6

47,1

48,4

49,2

47,3

48,0

46,2

10,3

10,1

10,4

11,7

11,2

11,6

6,7

6,9

8,3

7,5

7,8

8,6

1998 Jun.

1998 Dec.

1999 Jun.

1999 Dec.

2000 Jun.

2000 Dec.

60%

40%

20%

0%

More than once/week

2-3 times/month

never

This figure shows the constant occurrence of bullying.

once or twice

99

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MITSURU TAKI

Figure b:The Repetitive Incidence of being Isolated, Ignored and Called Names (More Than Once Per Week) in 6 Survey Points (the Cohort of Junior High School Grade 1 in 1998, in %)

6 times 0%

5 times 1%

4 times 1%

3 times 2% twice 6%

once 15%

never 75%

This figure shows there is no particular type of child who constantly bullies others.

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Figure c: The Repetitive Incidence of Being Isolated, Ignored and Called Names (More Than Once Or Twice in Each Term) in 6 Survey Points (the Cohort of Junior High School Grade 1 in 1998, in %) 6 times 14%

never 15%

5 times 14%

once 14%

4 times 13%

twice 15% 3 times 15%

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REPRESSION OF DEVIANCY AS A REASON FOR RECENT DEVIANCY Hideo Tokuoka

1. Historical Shifts in Juvenile Delinquency in Japan According to the White Paper on Crime, since the end of World War II, Japanese juvenile crime levels have reached three quantitative peaks, making three increasing periods and three decreasing periods (Hômushô 2000, see Figure 1). However, when we consider these data we should keep in mind firstly that the curve does not indicate a constant increase. Secondly, the figures of the White Paper represent the processed numbers treated by official agencies. They include a wide range of offenses (type I to type IV in Figure 2). Cases of shoplifting and bicycle theft (type IV) contribute enormously to the remarkable swings in the curves. Those crimes are easily swayed by the degree of controlling activities, which are themselves determined largely by public opinion. Thirdly, the incidence of serious crimes (which is more realistically reflected in the statistics than petty crime) has remained constant. The increase observed between the years 1955 and 1965 is a sort in statistical pretence affected by the marked increase of traffic accidents. It is said that a characteristic since 1970 has been the decreasing age levels of first-time offenders, as seen in Figure 3. This trend is frequently interpreted as an alarming sign of serious criminality. But from 1970 to the present, the low incidence of crime among 18- and 19-year-olds and young adults is continuing (see Figure 3), and the rate of recidivists among delinquents is constant or decreasing. In other words, up to now the 14- and 15-year-olds who constitute the “first reserve” of crime have not become “regular soldiers”.

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Figure 1: Juvenile Offenses under Criminal Law Persons

A

3000

B C: A-B

2500 2000 1500 1000 500 0 1936 41

46

51

56

61

66

71

76

81

86

91

96

year

Note: Since 1966, traffic negligence has been excluded. A: Total amount of juvenile offenses for under 20-year-olds. B: Larceny plus embezzlement. Shoplifting made up 54.1% of all larcenies in 1998. Embezzlement refers to the unauthorized usage of bicycles. The use of abandoned bicyles constitutes embezzlement from the legal point of view. C: So-called serious crimes. Sources: Annual editions of the Ministry of Justice’s White Paper on Crime (Hômushô).

Figure 2: Probability that the Criminal Will Be Registered in Formal Statistics Type

A

B

example

I

high

high

murder

II

high

high

property damage

III

low

high

corruption

IV

low

low

shoplifting

Note: A: Probability that the police know about the crime B: Probability that the police identify the criminal

REPRESSION OF DEVIANCY

105

Figure 3: Crime Rate of Juveniles by Age Group (Per 1,000 persons) 14- and 15-year-olds 16- and 17-year-olds

18- and 19-year-olds

Source: Kameyama 1979: 83.

The apparently growing involvement of younger offenders can be described as symbolizing a “net-widening”. Within the total scope of social control, the informal means of control have been substituted gradually by the formal means (that is, a shift from level A to level B in Figure 4). From 1960 to 1970, an important change occurred in the manner of social control. Formal agencies and thus registered in official statistics were increasingly dealing with the mischievous conduct of youth gangs, which had previously been treated by families and/or communities.

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Figure 4: The Net-Widening of Formal Control Agencies

Older juveniles serious crimes Younger juveniles

level A

minor offenses

level B

The quantity of delinquents does not support a pessimistic view. Noteworthy, however, are the qualitative changes observed over these past several decades. Many professionals involved in the juvenile justice system report on a wide spectrum of offenses, which range from large-scale to small-scale aggression. This takes the form of a linear development, the direction of violence moving from within the community at large to schools and to families. Furthermore, in reference to school violence, trends have shifted from inter-school violence to intra-school violence and in a broader sense, from physical acts of violence to bullying, leading to an increase in truancy and finally to an increase in the drop-out rate. On an analytical level, this can be seen as a shift from anti-social and oedipal violence to non-social and preoedipal violence. Such a shift can even be observed at the level of serious crime. Thus, while a partial decrease in violence may seem desirable at first glance, the underlying change from non-social to asocial behavior is deeply problematic from the point of view of a commitment to society.

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2. Four Types of Social Control and Dilemmas of the Juvenile Policy All societies, from managerial societies to laissez-faire societies, maintain a degree of social control. The way or means of control within one society changes according to time. In order to categorize types of social control, I have adopted two typological axes: an actoriented or actor-oriented (horizontal) axis and an external or internal (vertical) axis (see Figure 5). Each theory related to a relevant aspect of social control is indicated in the following manner: the first quadrant corresponds to the “just deserts” and deterrence ideology. The second quadrant refers to the rehabilitation or parens patriae school of thought. The third refers to the cognitive development theory and the fourth to the social learning theory. Figure 5: Four Types of Social Control external regulation

rehabilitation parens patriae

“just deserts” deterrence

actor oriented

action oriented cognitive development theory

social learning theory

internal regulation

Juvenile law, as an exception among criminal laws, treats juvenile delinquent persons and does not convict criminal acts. In the controversy over moral or legal socialization, it is said that while we can teach a mouse not to peck this or that box, it’s a different matter for a mouse to learn that it should not peck boxes in general. This reflects Lawrence Kohlberg’s standpoint, which is critical of the regulation of behavior according to the carrot-and-stick principle (Kohlberg 1984). However, both learning theory, which focuses on behavior, and cognitive development theory, which focuses on the actor's judgement,

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place great importance on social relations such as those involving significant others, on situations that call for problem-solving, roletaking opportunities and so on. When we try to choose one policy, we fall into a sort of dilemma, because many alternatives are incompatible with each other. In the first place, whether some agencies should intervene to improve the situation is a focal issue. Proponents of labeling theory recommend a policy of non-intervention, even at the remedial level. Second, an aggressive approach in promoting healthy development contradicts a passive approach centered around problem prevention, because the latter does not serve the former. Over-regulation aimed at protection from misbehavior diminishes opportunities for encouraging healthy vitality. Third, the long-term fundamental approach devoted to treating the root cause runs counter to the short-term treatment of the symptoms. Of course, school violence at present must be controlled even if the authorities have to exercise the use of force. But there is a lesson to be learned from the frustration-aggression theory. In the long run, merely suppressing students’ aggressive behavior may lead to even more aggression. A policy that stresses the promotion of health and a fundamental cure is a form of actor-oriented and internal regulation. By contrast, the problem-preventive and symptomatic treatment is a form of actoriented and external regulation. Social control, which depends mostly on the former, will be called type A control and the latter will be called type B control (see Figure 6).

3. The Countermeasure As a Cause, Not As an Effect Functional analysis has made us aware of the latent dysfunction or unintentional results of a purposive action, and adherents to the labeling approach have shown us that the relationship between cause and effect is far from obvious. Following those approaches, I would like to emphasize the need for a view of the countermeasure as a cause and not as an effect. A particular policy will produce another problem as a side effect.

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Figure 6: Two Types of Social Control Type A:

Type B:

external control

external control

actororiented

actionoriented

internal control

actororiented

actionoriented

internal control

To offer an example, in 1960, several shocking offenses involving youths with knives occurred in succession, including the sensational stabbing of a famous political party leader. As a countermeasure, a nationwide campaign was launched to discourage youths from using sharp-edged tools. As part of this campaign, classrooms were even equipped with electric pencil-sharpeners. This policy was successful because some years later, many adults complained that recent pupils had trouble using cutlery and could not even sharpen a pencil with a knife. As a countermeasure, youth leaders took pupils out camping to allow them to cut twigs, peel fruit and mince meat for dinner. The focus on the preventive intervention and the short-term treatment of the symptoms (type B control) is more likely to cause side effects than the promotion of health and the long-term fundamental approach devoted to treating the cause (type A control), because the former limits the experience of manifold and intimate human relationships. True to Merton’s phrase “virtue causes evil” (Merton 1957), the successful countermeasures for one problem are the source of another problem (see lower part of Figure 7).

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Figure 7: Problems, Countermeasures and the Shifts in Social Control Type B B

The amount of social control A Type A M.P

P1

C1 P: problem

M.P

P2

C2

M.P

P3

C: countermeasure

C3

M.P

P4

C4

M.P: moral

4. Moral Panic and Moral Socialization The statistical increase in juvenile crime reported in the White Paper causes moral panic.1 However, in an information society, the explosive reporting by the mass media of sensational cases has done even more to bring about such panic. For instance, the years 1985 and 1986 were a period of intense moral panic. Figure 8 indicates the number of newspaper headlines that refer to “bullying.” In February 1985, major newspapers started a campaign against bullying which was triggered by a schoolgirl’s suicide. After that, much deviant juvenile behavior was interpreted as bullying or its causes were attributed to bullying; a new causal category of “bullying” was socially established. Even in notes left by juvenile suicides, they began to express their motives in terms of being “ill-treated,” choosing their wording from among the socially approved vocabulary of motives, to borrow W. Mills’ term (Mills 1940).

1

This term, introduced by Stanley Cohen, describes a state in which a society’s values and moral beliefs that had hitherto been taken for granted are shaken and have to be redefined due to intensive media coverage of exceptional incidents, such as bullying or bizarre crimes.

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REPRESSION OF DEVIANCY

Figure 8: The Number of Newspaper Headlines referring to “Bullying” cases 240 220 200 180 160 140 120 100 80 60 40 20 0 1981

82

83

84

85

86

87

88

89

90

year

Source: Author’s own computation using a database of Asahi shinbun articles (CDASAX).

Figure 9 illustrates another example. In May 1997, a 14-year-old schoolboy committed a bizarre murder. However, the Japanese Juvenile Act prohibited the transfer of cases involving juveniles under 16 years of age to the adult criminal court. Newspapers reported many serious incidents committed by young offenders and pushed public opinion toward an anti-parens-patriae ideology. The acute controversy over the amendment to the Juvenile Act became explosive and finally in November 2000, the act was revised to transfer cases involving juveniles over the age of 14 to the criminal court. The revision is effective from April 2002 (see Schwarzenegger in this volume).

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Figure 9: The Number of Newspaper Articles referring to “Juvenile Acts” cases 350 300 250 200 150 100 50 0 1989

90

91

92

93

94

95

96

97

98

99

year 2000

Source: Author’s own computation using a database of Asahi Shinbun articles (CDHIASK).

Due to moral panic, we are pressured to adopt the policies of type B control as a first-aid treatment aimed at prompt efficiency. This alternative is relied on excessively. In other words, this treatment is applied not only to problematic pupils, but also to all young people, many of whom are healthy and eager to seek active experiences. Furthermore, the gradual shift from type A to type B control has become an irreversible process, because we don’t relax our guard even when the juvenile crime rate is decreasing (see upper part of Figure 7). Families, communities, schools and a juvenile justice system governed by moral panic narrow the chances for children to learn social adaptability. Thus, the shift to type B control is not conducive to moral socialization and contributes to the rearing of non-socialized, non-moral children. Furthermore, peculiarities concerning the very recent phenomena pertaining to juvenile delinquency are seen as evidence of a lack of moral beliefs. Juveniles of today are said to be apathetic, impudent, easily enraged, lacking a sense of responsibility and a moral core as well as the patience and ability to restrain naked emotion. They seem no longer to follow the old type of continuum in vice from misconduct to serious crime. Many adults who cannot understand this behavior according to the traditional, conventional value system feel a vague sense of apprehension.

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5. Pessimistic Self-Fulfilling Prophecy If people define situations as real, they are real in their consequences. Robert Merton refers to the self-fulfilling prophecy following W. Thomas’ “definition of situations” (Merton 1957, chap. 11; Thomas 1923). Oedipus brought about his tragedy because he believed in Apollo’s prophecy and attempted to avoid the fulfillment of it. Preparing for the worst gave rise to the worst. Labeling theory assumes that the suspicious gaze or negative labeling of others makes juveniles delinquent in the sense that a persona becomes a personality. When all audiences made up of such people as parents, teachers and professionals over-react and try to prepare themselves for the worst, this pessimistic prophecy, even if it is based on the mass media’s misconstrued image of reality, could be fulfilled as a sort of boomerang effect. A policy adhering to the catchword “prevention is the best cure” can ironically have the effect of turning ordinary pupils into potential delinquents, leading the way for them to become criminal candidates and finally hardened criminals. Therefore, we must change our view towards a more positive assessment of the younger generation. All agents of social control, families, schools and formal control agencies should seek to return to a type A form of control, that is to an actor-oriented and internal control (socialization). Rather than focusing too much on the suppression of all deviance, Japanese society should strive to rise a healthy young generation that is full of vitality.

6. References CD-ASAX: Asahi Shinbunsha (ed.): Sengô 50 nen Asahi Shinbun dêtabêsu 1945–1995 (Asahi Shinbun [newspaper article] Database 1945–1995). CD-HIASK: Asahi Shinbunsha (ed.): Sengô 50 nen Asahi Shinbun dêtabêsu 1989–2000 (Asahi Shinbun [newspaper article] Database 1989–2000). Cohen, Stanley (1972): Folk Devils and Moral Panics: The Creation of the Mods and Rockers. London: MacGibbon and Kee. Hômushô (ed.): Hanzai hakusho (White paper on crime). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Kameyama, Takeo (1979): Saikin no seishônen hanzai ni tsuite (An Essay on Recent Juvenile Delinquency). Hanzai to hikô, 40, p. 83. Kohlberg, Lawrence (1984): The Psychology of Moral Development: the Nature and Validity of Moral Stages. San Francisco: Harper and Row.

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Merton, Robert (1957): Social Theory and Social Structure. New York: The Free Press. Mills, Wright C. (1940): Situated actions and vocabularies of motive. American Sociological Review, 5, pp. 904–913. Thomas, William (1923): The Unadjusted Girl: With Cases and Standpoint for Behavior Analysis. Boston: Little/Brown.

INEQUALITY BASED ON FAMILY BACKGROUND AS A REASON FOR JUVENILE DELINQUENCY Shigenobu Yonekawa

1. The Third Wave of Juvenile Delinquency in Japan and the Tendency Towards a Generalization of Juvenile Delinquency The proportion of incidents of Japanese juvenile delinquency (total number of arrests compared to the general population) after World War II has taken place in three waves (see Tokuoka in this volume). The first wave reached its peak in 1951, the second in 1964, and the third in 1983. After 1992 a new wave steadily rose until 1998. Although some authorities have called this development a “fourth wave”, this report will not support this view because it is still conjectural. According to statistics of the National Police Agency (hanzai tôkeisho), the total number of juveniles between 14 and 19 years old being arrested in 1983 was 196,783. The number does not include those involved in traffic accidents caused through negligence. The ratio of juvenile criminals per thousand of the total juvenile population of this age group is 18.8 and 45.0% of all arrests including adults. The latest data of 1999 has shown that the total number of arrests in the juvenile age group (14 to 19 years old), apart from those in traffic accidents, was 141,721, the ratio (per thousand) being 15.6% of this age group and 44.9% of the total number of arrests. One of the distinctions of the third wave of juvenile delinquency, which have been pointed out by many authors is the so-called “generalization of juvenile delinquency”. This term refers to the fact that nowadays juvenile delinquents mostly are brought up by two-parent families with no financial difficulties. According to the Annual Report of Judicial Statistics (shihô tôkei nenpô) the ratio of juvenile delinquents’ families, which have suffered from poverty, was 72.3% in 1955. It declined thereafter and

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reached 58.9% in 1963, and fell in 1964 to 28.7%. Although the altered method of investigation influenced the result, the ratio of poor families kept declining. In 1970 when the third wave began, the ratio dropped to 21.3%. It was 13.7% in 1983, which was the peak of the third wave. Therefore, the third wave is characterized as the generalization of juvenile delinquency in terms of the economic conditions of families. On the other hand, the ratio of juvenile delinquents lacking at least one parent was 54.9% in 1955, 52.4% in 1960, and 45.5% in 1963. In 1964 these numbers dropped 28.7% as the method of investigation had changed. After that there was no radical change, only a slight decrease. The ratio stabilized at 25.8% in 1970, and 26.0% in 1983. Accordingly, after 1964, the ratio of delinquents’ families with both parents increased. After that, this number leveled off so that the “process of the generalization of juvenile delinquency” was not noticeable in the third wave, although the ratio of two-parent families had shifted to around 75%. Therefore, the “generalization of juvenile delinquency” can be identified but can not be characterized as the only phenomenon of the third wave. Here the ratio of families who were lacking either parent before 1964 could be quoted for reference. According to criminal statistics, the ratio of families, who raised juvenile delinquents, was as follows: 1951: 33.5%, 1955: 33.0%, and 1963: 22.8%.1

2. The Background of Juvenile Delinquents’ Families Here are the latest data held by various government offices, which concern the present situation. The ratio of non-two-parent families raising juvenile delinquents was 23.2% in 1998 according to police statistics, although judicial statistics show this figure to be 30.8%. According to corrective statistics (kyôsei tôkei nenpô) in 1999, the ratio of non-two-parent families was 42.2% at juvenile classification homes (shônen kanbetsu-sho) and 48.2% at reform and training schools (shônen’in). The ratio of juvenile delinquents’ families, 1

The Criminal Statistics Report showed the numbers of natural fathers and natural mothers up to 1978; however, from 1979 to 1988 the report showed only the number of fathers and mothers without any distinction. After 1988, the numbers of natural fathers and mothers were shown again. From 1964 to 1971, there were no statistics about parents.

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which have suffered poverty, was shown in judicial statistics at 8.6% in 1998. Corrective statistics showed this figure to be 18.1% of those surveyed in juvenile classification homes and 21.1% in reform and training schools in 1999. These data were not found in police statistics. Furthermore, 2.24% of families were on welfare relief according to judicial statistics in 1998. As shown in the various statistics above, the ratio of poor families is quite low today, though the corrective statistics show a relatively high ratio. The ratio of poor families has declined from 13.7% in 1983, the peak of the third wave. On the other hand, the ratio of nontwo-parent families, which only police and judicial statistics track, leads to the generalization that juvenile delinquency is gaining momentum not only because of economic background, but also because of single parenthood. The ratio of families suffering poverty in general could be shown as follows: the proportion of households on welfare relief with more than two family members, except households of the aged, is calculated at 0.46% based on welfare statistics (kokumin seikatsu kiso chôsa and shakai fukushi gyôsei gyômu hôkoku) compiled by the Health and Welfare Ministry in 1998. The ratio of families who have juvenile delinquents and are on welfare relief is 4.9 times higher than families in general2 according to judicial statistics. Although the ratio of poor families with juvenile delinquents is relatively low, juvenile delinquents are more likely to come from poor families than from other families. According to the 1998 Welfare Statistics (kokumin seikatsu kiso chôsa) the ratio of single-parent families, not including households with only couples, is 3.3%, 2.9% having single mothers and 0.5% having single fathers. The ratio of non-two-parent families or “broken homes” in which juvenile delinquents have grown up is 22.9% according to police statistics and 30.8% according to judicial statistics in 1998. It is not a fair comparison because the number of nuclear families with unmarried children instead of “juveniles” is calculated as the common denominator and the absence of a father or mother is ignored by Welfare Statistics in the case of three generation-families. Even taking into account these facts, the ratio of non-two-parent families with juvenile delinquents is exceedingly high. The ratio of junior high 2

The term “families in general” refers to households with juvenile delinquents and non-juvenile delinquents.

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school students who were arrested or monitored by the police coming from non-father families, including those in three-generation families, is 21.3% and 15.4% of high school students according to the 1998 data of the Management and Coordination Agency (Sômuchô). The ratio of non-mother families with junior high school students is 5.7% and 3.6% with high school students. Consequently, the ratio of singleparent families with delinquent junior high school students is 27.0% and 19.0% with delinquent high school students. The ratio of junior high school students in general who have no father is 8.8%, while 8.0% of high school students do not have a father. The ratio of nonmother families with junior high school students is 1.5% and 2.0% with high school students (Sômuchô 1999:346). It can be seen that the incidence of juvenile delinquency in non-two-parent families is much higher than in two-parent families.

3. The Social Class Features of Families in Which Juvenile Delinquents Are Raised In this section, the connection between juvenile delinquency and the occupational or educational backgrounds of parents is going to be dealt with. The author conducted a survey of juveniles who were arrested or monitored by the police in 1992.3 The occupational configuration of juvenile delinquents’ fathers is 24.6% in self-employment, 22.9% in management, administration, specialized professions, and technical or office work and 24.9% in factory work, shop assisting, craftwork with factory employees accounting for 19.1%. Other employees make up 23.6%, those uncategorized make up 1.8%, and 2.2% are unemployed 3

The research concerned junior high school students, high school students, employed juveniles, and unemployed juveniles who were arrested or monitored by the police due to criminal law offences and status offences, except those who are involved in deaths or injuries through negligence in traffic accidents in the Kanto area (including Nagano, Niigata and Shizuoka prefecture). The total sample was 828 and specified as follows: junior high school students: 294 (boys: 240, girls: 53, uncertain: 1), high school students: 276 (boys: 190, girls: 86), employed juveniles: 116 (boys: 101, girls: 15), unemployed juveniles: 105 (boys: 60, girls: 45), others: 19 (boys: 15, girls: 4, uncertain: 18). Also junior high and senior high school students in general were targets of this research. The total number of students surveyed was 1,324, and specified as follows: junior high school students: 636 (boys: 324, girls: 312) and high school students: 688 (boys: 301, girls: 387).

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according to this survey. According to another survey, which had been conducted in 1994 in collaboration with other researchers,4 the main breadwinners of the household are the fathers, and their occupational configuration is as follows: 15.5% in self-employment, 58.7% in management, administration, specialized professions, technical or office work and 8.9% in factory work, shop assisting and craftwork (factory employees making up 6.4%). Other employees make up 14.4%, those uncategorized make up 1.2%, and 1.3% are unemployed. Although both surveys cannot be compared directly due to slight differences in the method and the object, the ratio of white-collar workers seem to be lower in the families of juvenile delinquents. On the other hand, according to corrective statistics in 1999, 22.4% of fathers or mothers who have their children staying in reform schools are technical employees, managers, and office employees, 24.8% are service employees, 30.7% manufacturing employees or laborers, 1.8% are engaged in agriculture and fishery, and 8.8% are unemployed. Welfare statistics in 1998 showed that the configuration of occupations for general households which have more than two members in a family is 35.3% for professionals, technical employees, managers and office employees, 16.3% for sales or service employees, 19.3% for manufacturing employees or laborers, 4.5% for agricultural and fishery employees, 7.9% for others, and 16.7% for the unemployed (Due to the fact that households of the aged are included, the ratio of the unemployed is high.). It can be clearly seen that parents of juvenile delinquents tend to be more blue-collar workers than whitecollar workers. Since the educational backgrounds of juvenile delinquents’ parents are also not publicized in official statistics the author conducted a survey on juveniles who were arrested or monitored by the police in 1992 in order to investigate their fathers’ educational backgrounds. 14.0% of fathers who have juvenile delinquents as children have graduated from university or junior college (including drop-outs), 63.0% from high school (including drop-outs) and 23.1% from junior high school.

4

The sample of the 1994 survey consists of 2,615 students in the capital area with 784 third grade junior high school students (boys: 395, girls: 389) and 1,831 high school students (boys: 752, girls: 1,079). The sample of parents consisted of 264 fathers and 1,253 mothers.

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The following ratios refer to juvenile delinquents according to their social status. Concerning fathers of junior high school students who were arrested or monitored by the police, 17.3% graduated from university or community college, 59.9% graduated from high school, and 22.8% graduated from junior high school. Concerning fathers of high school students, 16.2% graduated from university or junior college, 68.1% graduated from high school, and 15.8% graduated from junior high school. Concerning fathers of the employed juveniles, 4.6% are university or junior college graduates, 56.8% are high school graduates, and 38.6% are junior high school graduates. Concerning fathers of the unemployed juveniles who did neither go to school nor work, 5.9% graduated from university or junior college, 64.7% graduated from high school, and 29.4% graduated from junior high school. As the 1994 survey has shown, the general group of public junior high school and high school students have fathers who have educational backgrounds in the following ratios: university or junior college graduates: 42.1%, high school graduates: 44.4%, junior high school graduates: 8.3% and others: 5.3%. Simple comparisons are not possible since the year, the object, and the distinctions concerning educational background are slightly different in both surveys, but fathers who graduated from university or junior college are parents to few juvenile delinquents, while fathers who only graduated from junior high school suffered more in terms of having juvenile delinquents.

4. Some Considerations About the Social Status of Families as a Cause of Delinquency As the preceding information has shown, poor families, non-two-parent families or families in which the father has a low educational background have a high ratio of juvenile delinquency. Concerning this matter, three points should be carefully noted. The first point is that non-two-parent families, especially single-mother families or those in which the father is a blue-collar worker, suffer more frequently from relative poverty.5 Also, a father who has a low educational background is more likely to become a blue-collar worker.6 5

According to the research of 1994 (note 6), findings related to the occupations of the main household breadwinners (mainly fathers) show that 27.5% of those who are in management, administration, specialized professions, technical work and office work belongs to a high-income class (a household income of more than ten million

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Second, poverty, lack of one parent, or low educational background of the father does not directly lead to juvenile delinquency. Rather, these families show a lack of communication between parents and children or have insufficient means for enabling children to have social ability, which subsequently leads to delinquency (Hoshino 1999: 203-4). The last point is that dropouts, a factor which seems to be connected to juvenile delinquency, came from poor families, single-parent families or families with fathers of low educational background, more often. Actually, these dropouts have not only disengaged themselves from the school system, but also given up even the aspiration to go into higher education. I will expound on this point by quoting from the results of the research, which has been carried out by the author in 1992 (see section 3). When juvenile delinquents are mentioned, the term refers to juveniles who were arrested or monitored by the police unless there is a particular comment indicated. 4.1 Composition of the Status and Educational Background of Juvenile Delinquents The composition of status (that is, the ratio of high school students, the employed, and the unemployed) and educational backgrounds (high school graduates, junior high school graduates and high school dropouts) for 16, 17 and 18-year-olds is shown in Table 1.

yen yearly), and 58.9% to a medium-income class with a household income of between six and ten million yen yearly. In contrast, in the case of occupations related to factory work, shop assisting and craftwork, 44.1% belong to a medium-income class, and 51.5% to a low-income class with a household income of less than six million yen yearly (p=0.000). When fathers graduate from university or junior college, 38.9% of them belong to a high-income class, and 37.0% to a medium-income class. Of the fathers who graduate from high school or below high school (high school graduates making up 84%), 68.1% belong to medium-income class, and 8.7% belong to lowincome class (p=0.000). 6 According to the research of 1994, 90.6% of the fathers who have graduated from university or community college, are in management, administration, specialized professions, technical work and office work. In contrast, only 58.3% of the fathers who graduate from high school or below belong to management, administration, specialized professions, technical work and office work, but 23.3% of them are factory workers, shop assistants, or craftsmen (p=0.000).

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Table 1: The Composition of Status and Educational Background of Juvenile Delinquents of High School Age Composition of Status (%) Boys Girls High EmUnem- Total High EmUnemschool ployed ployed (N=) school ployed ployed Age 16 64.6 17.0 18.4 100% 75.4 6.6 18.0 (147) Age 17 53.4 27.3 19.3 100% 54.0 6.0 40.0 (88) Age 18 44.6 41.9 13.5 100% 47.4 15.8 36.8 (74) Average 56.6 25.9 17.5 100% 63.1 7.7 29.2 (309) Composition of Educational Background (%) Boys Girls High Junior High Total High Junior High school high school (N=) school high school graduate school drop-out graduate school drop-out graduate graduate Age 16 64.6 18.4 17.0 100% 75.4 11.5 13.1 (147) Age 17 56.0 22.6 21.4 100% 55.1 22.5 22.5 (84) Age 18 46.5 19.7 33.8 100% 50.0 33.3 16.7 (71) Average 57.9 19.9 22.2 100% 64.1 18.8 17.2 (302)

Total (N=) 100% (61) 100% (50) 100% (19) 100% (130)

Total

100% (61) 100% (49) 100% (18) 100% (128)

According to the Annual Report of Judicial Statistics (shihô tôkei nenpô 1999), 14.0% of delinquent juveniles were junior high school graduates, and 17.6% were dropouts from high school. According to a report of the Ministry of Education, the mean ratio of dropouts from high school was only 1.9% in 1992, and 2.6% in 1998 (Monbushô, 2000:54). It is clear that many juvenile delinquents are dropouts from high school or junior high school graduates.

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4.2 The Aspiration of Juvenile Delinquents to Join Higher Education The tendency of juvenile delinquents to leave the school system also reflects their aspiration to go to high school or university. As Table 2 shows, only 21.9% of delinquent boys and 9.8% of delinquent girls who are still junior high school students have the desire to graduate from university or junior college. Table 2: Desirable Goals of Junior and Senior High School Students after Graduation Junior High School Students High School Students Boys Girls Boys Girls Non- Delin- Non- Delin- Non- Delin- Non- Delindelin- quent delin- quent delin- quent delin- quent quent quent quent quent Graduate from university Graduate from junior college Special from training school after high school Employment after high school Special training after junior high school Employment after junior high school Neither school nor employment Total

81.3

20.6

45.5

2.0

86.6

32.6

51.9

11.1

1.6

1.3

26.4

7.8

0.0

1.7

30.5

12.3

4.1

14.2

17.5

15.7

7.9

18.0

8.1

28.4

10.4

31.8

7.3

23.5

3.1

46.6

7.8

48.1

0.6

9.4

1.7

21.6

/

/

/

/

1.0

20.6

1.0

21.6

/

/

/

/

1.0 2.2 100% 100% (316) (233) Chi-square test p=0.000

0.7 7.8 100% 100% (303) (51) p=0.000

2.4 1.1 100% 100% (292) (178) p=0.000

1.6 0.0 100% 100% (370) (81) p=0.000

Among junior high school boys in general, 82.9% would like to go to university or junior college, and 71.9% of girls have the same desire. In contrast, 46.0% of delinquent boys and 39.2% of delinquent girls would like to graduate from high school or join special training schools after high school. 32.2% of delinquent boys and 51.0% of delinquent girls do not want to go to high school. Juvenile delinquents

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who are high school students and desire to go to university or junior college make up 34.3% of boys, and 23.4% of girls. In contrast, in general 86.6% and 82.4% of high school students respectively aspire to go to university or junior college. The aspiration of juvenile delinquents to go to university or junior college is obviously low. 4.3 Aspirations to Receive Higher Education and Social Status of Families Who Raise Juvenile Delinquents The fact that the aspirations of juvenile delinquents to go into higher education is remarkably low compared to juveniles in general reflects the fact that these juveniles have not been well socialized within their families and are surrounded by more severe circumstances. The fact that families of juvenile delinquents are often non-two-parent families, poor families or families who have fathers that are blue-collar workers has already been stated. Next, the fact that the juvenile delinquents who have been brought up in these families have low aspiration to go to higher education will be proved. The research that will be presented is relatively old (conducted in 1984 by the Tokyo Metropolitan government) because this type of research has not been carried out recently. According to this research, junior high school students from two-parent families, who would like to go to university or junior college, amount to 63.8%. For students coming from single-mother families, the proportion is 49.8% and the ratio of students coming from single-father families is 33.3%. The ratio of parents who would like to send their children to university or junior college is 63.5% from twoparent families, 55.4% from single-mother families and 42.7% from single-father families7 (Yonekawa 1991:203).

7

According to this research, the proportion of juveniles who go to high school is 95.9% for juveniles who have both parents, 91.9% for juveniles who have only a mother, and 87.1% for juveniles who have only a father. The proportion of juveniles who go to university or community college is 51.0% for juveniles who have both parents, 38.1% for juveniles who have only a mother, and 28.6% for juveniles who have only a father (Yonekawa 1991: 201).

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Table 3: Relation between Family Background of Juvenile Delinquents and their Aspiration to Receive a Higher Education (Boys only) Junior High School Students Parents Aspirations Graduate university or junior college Graduate high school Non-high school Total Chi-square test

Aspirations

Occupation of fathers

Educational background of fathers

both parents

Junior Father Moth- Self- White Blue Uni- High high only er only empl. collar collar Others versity school school

26.0

6.7

8.1

23.5

40.5

17.5

19.5

45.5

25.4

7.0

47.5

40.0

43.2

50.0

42.9

47.5

47.6

33.3

47.4

53.5

26.5 53.3 48.7 26.5 16.7 35.0 32.9 21.2 27.2 39.5 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% (181) (15) (37) (34) (42) (40) (82) (33) (114) (43) (p=0.009)

p=0.146 High School Students

Parents

Occupation of fathers

Both parents

p=0.004 Educational background of fathers

Junior Father Moth- Self- White Blue Uni- High high only er only empl. collar collar Others versity school school

Graduate university or junior college 36.1 33.3 Graduate high 63.9 66.7 school Total 100% 100% (158) (3) Chi-square (p=0.207) test

13.3

37.0

44.4

17.9

35.3

63.3

31.1

17.4

86.7 63.0 55.6 82.1 64.7 36.7 68.9 82.6 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% 100% (15) (46) (54) (28) (34) (30) (106) (23) (p=0.127)

(p=0.001)

Note: Several cells did not reach the expectation rate of 5 and therefore, as shown in the chi-square test brackets, the results were not necessarily exact.

The result, therefore, displayed the fact that the aspirations of children in single-parent families are low. Moreover it suggests that the expectations of parents toward their children’s future are low too. According to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, in 1993 the ratio of parents who would like to send their children to university or junior college was 52.4% for single-mother families and 52.9% for singlefather families (Kôseishô 1995:7,14). On the other hand, the research

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focusing on families in general who live in the capital area in 1994 showed that 90.9% of fathers and 94.8% of mothers wish to have their high-school aged boys go to university or junior college. Furthermore, 88.6% of fathers and 85.4% of mothers who have daughters who go to high school have hopes for them to go to university or junior college (Yonekawa, 1995a: 265-6). Even though the research results above can not simply be compared because their methodologies are not the same, they suggest that the desire of single parents to have their children go to university or junior college is relatively low. The data showing that family structures influence juvenile aspirations to receive a higher education correspond to the data related to juvenile delinquents only. Research was carried out in 1992 with two groups of delinquent boys—junior high school students and high school students—and the research concerned the relationship between their aspirations to go to higher education and three factors: whether these juveniles have parents or not, their fathers’ occupations, and their fathers’ educational backgrounds. Table 3 demonstrates that 1. In single-father or single-mother families, the number of juvenile delinquents who have the aspiration to go to university or junior college is low. However, when focusing only on high school students, the ratio of those wishing to go to university or at least graduate from high school shows no difference between juvenile delinquents and juveniles in general. 2. Families in which the father is a blue-collar worker, the number of juvenile delinquents who have the aspiration to go to university or junior college is low, and the number of those who have no desire to go to high school is high. 3. The same is true for the families in which the father has a low educational background. Furthermore, with regard to fathers who have graduated from university or junior college, more than 60% of their delinquent sons or daughters at high school age would like to enter higher education.

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5. Conclusion The delinquency of junior high or high school students seems to accelerate when they abandon their goals for entering university. The family structure and social status often directly or indirectly cause this abandonment. Single-parent families, poor families, and families in which fathers have low educational backgrounds lack the ability to invest in the socialization of their children. Family structure or status not only cause obstruction for internalizing juvenile aspirations to join higher educational level, making it difficult for them to be achieved due to economic reasons, but also lead to a lack of expectations of parents concerning the future of their children (Yonekawa 1996: 128– 129). These family conditions have been influential in limiting access to the institutionalized means of entering university or in limiting the effects of these means.8 Nowadays the academically oriented society is highly advanced and most junior high and high school students have the goal of entering university. This situation makes an atmosphere in which juveniles who don’t have the goal of entering university are labeled as dropouts. Juveniles labeled as dropouts experience psychological strain such as frustration and are characterized as “dead pigeons” (dame ningen) resulting in a negative self-image. This psychological damage is frequently based on family conditions, which do not allow the affluence of society to be appreciated. The inequality of family background has influenced the aspirations of juveniles to go into higher educational levels and has accelerated juvenile delinquency in modern Japanese society.

8

The term ‘institutionalized means’ refers to the concept which was presented by R. K. Merton in “Social Theory and Social Structure” (Merton 1968).

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6. References Hayami, Hiroshi (1989): Hikô no ippanka-ron saikô (The Theory of ‘Generalization of Delinquency’ Reconsidered), Hanzai shakaigaku kenkyû No. 14, pp. 109128. Hirschi, Travis (1972): Causes of Delinquency, Berkeley: University of California Press. Hoshino, Kanehiro (1999): Hikô no kateiteki yôin (Family Background as a Factor of Delinquency), Sômuchô. Kôseishô (1995): Zenkoku bôshi setai-tô chôsa kekka no gaiyô 1993 (Summary of the National Research on Households of Mother and Child(ren) 1993). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Merton, Robert K. (1968): Social Theory and Social Structure, enlarged ed., New York: Free Press. Monbushô (2000): Seitô shidô-jô no sho-mondai no genjô to Monbushô no shisaku ni tsuite (The Present Condition of Problems Concerning Student Guidance and Measures of the Ministry of Education). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Sômuchô (1999): Hikô gen’in ni kansuru sôgôteki kenkyû chôsa, dai3kai (The 3rd General Research on Causes of Delinquency). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô insatsukyoku. Tokuoka, Hideo (1985): ‘Kesson kazoku’ wa hikô gen’in ka (‘Broken Family’ as a Factor of Delinquency?), Hanzai shakaigaku kenkyû, No. 10, pp. 34-37. Yonekawa, Shigenobu (1991): Kôkôsei no daigaku shingaku kibô no jittai to sono kôzô (The Reality and Structure of Aspirations for Entering College among High School Students), Shukutoku Daigaku Kenkyu kiyô, No.30, p. 1. —— (1995a): Gendai shakai byôrigaku (Modern Social Pathology). Tôkyô: Gakubunsha. —— (1995b): Gakureki anomî to shônen hikô (Juvenile Delinquency under the Conditions of the Anomie of a School Career). Tôkyô: Gakubunsha. —— (1996): Gakureki anomî to chûkôsei (Delinquency among Junior and Senior High School Students under the Conditions of the Anomie of a School Career), Hanzai shakaigaku kenkyû, No. 21, pp. 118-144. —— (1999): Hikô (Delinquency). In: Shikata Hisao (ed.), Kazoku no hôkai (Disruption of Families), Tôkyô: Mineruba, pp. 55-74.

YOUTH DEVIANT BEHAVIOR, CONFLICT AND LATER CONSEQUENCES: COMPARISON OF WORKING AND MIDDLE-CLASS COMMUNITIES IN JAPAN Robert S. Yoder

1. Introduction In the early seventies, youth crime became the center of attention in Japan. Control after control was piled up to quell juvenile delinquency. These controls were met with youth rebellion, indicated by a rising, not a falling-off, of youngsters being apprehended and punished for juvenile delinquency. From 1972 to 1983 juvenile arrests for Penal Code offenses nearly doubled. Rates of pre-delinquency (also referred to as status offenses or misbehavior) more than doubled during this same time period, reaching a million and a half youngsters or nearly eight percent of the youth population being cited for misbehavior in 1983 (White Papers on Police 1984; Hanzai Hakusho 1992). While youth arrest rates tailed off after the middle 1980s, they have begun to rise again, this time accompanied by more school deviance. From 1990 to 1997, arrest rates of junior and senior high school students have increased significantly and reported incidents of school violence have more than tripled in both middle and high school (Foljanty-Jost 2000). During this same time period, school absentee rates have doubled and more students are dropping-out of high school (Foljanty-Jost 2000; Seishônen Hakusho 1999). And, again, in response to so-called increased problems of youth deviance, more controls are being called for. The Diet has just passed a new law lowering the age for criminal liability from 16 to 14 years old and government educational reforms are set to be implemented nation-wide in 2002. The automatic government response of increasing social controls to deal with real or politically trumped up problems of youth deviance has blindly been seen as the solution and not the source of the problem. For one thing, increased delinquent controls result in higher offi-

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cial rates of youth crime, simply by upping the probability of a youngster getting caught doing something wrong. The dramatic increases of youth crime rates from the 1970s to 1980s can only tell us that police took more action against youth crime, not that the actual number of youth committing crime increased. That adult social controls have contributed to the problem of youth deviance has simply been neglected in scholarly works. Research on youth deviance in Japan has attributed such problem behavior to individual shortcomings of youth or contributory social influences. Poor academic achievement, faulty socialization (often associated with rapid social change), or weak bonds with significant others are common causes associated with their deviant behavior (Hoshino 1984; DeVos/Wagatsuma 1984; Foljanty-Jost 2000). Conflict and power are largely ignored. One reason for this, as Steinhoff (1993) notes, is a reliance on official data and the perspectives of those who hold power, quite often the police, in a circular “harmony model” of crime control in Japan. This paper examines how social reproduction of class status (Willis 1977) and conflict labeling theory (Lofland 1969) combine to account for higher apparent rates of delinquency and poorer adult social outcomes among children from working class as opposed to upper middle class families. It will be shown that working and upper middle class youngsters differ in social relations and propensity to conformity because of their class position and residence. In line with Willis (1977: 171–176), the cultural forms of these two class groups of youngsters are different leading to both higher rates of delinquency for working class youth and a social reproduction of class position when youngsters in both class groups become adults. Delinquency, as a category of deviance, is viewed in the context of power. Lofland (1969: 19) states that deviance: “is rule violation only in the limited sense that it involves violating the rules of relatively large minorities or majorities who are powerful, well organized and highly fearful of individuals or loosely organized or small groups who lack power.” Working class youth are most vulnerable to being singled out as rule violators because of their powerless class situation. The findings are from a long-term study of youth in two contrasting neighborhoods in Japan. This study focuses on “pre-delinquency,” or youth misbehavior, a category of minor offenses that are thought by the authorities to be precursors of more serious criminal violations by juveniles. Pre-delin-

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quency consists of a set of normative standards for youth behavior created by adults. Youngsters are formally liable to adjudication and punishment for violation of pre-delinquent offenses (smoking, drinking alcohol, truancy, unhealthy sexual behavior and so forth). Since these norms encoded in criminal law apply only to youth for the deliberate purpose of adult control, they represent a social categorization of labeling (Liska 1987). Youth and only youth are singled out and labeled as pre-delinquent offenders and subjected to punishment by those that created these very laws: adults.

2. Research Methods and Setting I conducted fieldwork on youth deviant behavior called pre-delinquency or misbehavior in two communities in Kanagawa prefecture, a suburban area southwest of Tokyo. One was a working class community, which will be called “Minami” or South in English, while the other was an upper-middle class community, which will be called “Hoku” or North in English (Yoder 1986). This research originally took place in Minami and Hoku from 1983 to 1985. A total survey of all youth aged 14 to 20 in the two communities resulted in a nearly eighty percent (125 of 159) completion rate, with most youngsters interviewed. Two follow-up studies on the same youth that had been interviewed in the original study were carried out in 1987 and 1998 to 1999. The first follow-up yielded a forty-six percent (42 of 91) response rate to mailed questionnaires. The second more extensive follow-up study resulted in a more than eighty percent (74 of 91) completion rate, with information obtained mostly from these same former youth, now young adults, by mail questionnaires and interviews. In a few cases, some follow-up information was obtained from family members or friends when the original subject could not be reached. The original fieldwork also included participant observation in and near both communities. Both communities were revisited during the follow-up studies and particularly during the second follow-up study, some 16 years after the original study took place, a good deal of time was spent becoming reacquainted with people and places in both communities. The setting characteristics of both communities that have changed little over the years follow.

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Minami and Hoku are two different worlds. Minami is a tough working class neighborhood with cramped low quality housing, cheap rental apartment buildings and run down streets, quite unlike the spacious community of Hoku with its expensive quality homes. There are numerous small, family-run commercial shops in Minami while there is no commercial activity in Hoku. A main highway runs parallel to Minami. Near and in the community there is a lot of noise and going on of all sorts, involving people from different walks of life. Hoku is nestled within a mountain range surrounded by temples in a culturally significant city, and there is an eerie silence within the community. These community contrasts are reflected in the different family background of youngsters living there. Minami youngsters in the original study came from a working class family background while Hoku youth were upper-middle class. Almost twenty percent of Minami youth came from a single parent family compared to less than five percent of Hoku youth. Three times (79% to 25%) more Minami mothers worked, and more than a third of the fathers of Minami youth held working class jobs. All fathers of Hoku youth were professional or white-collar workers, an occupational status much higher than that of the fathers of Minami youth.

3. The Cities and Schools The neighborhoods are located in cities with approximately the same population, around 200,000 and are located in the same prefecture about 30 minutes away from each other by train. Shonan (fictitious name of the city where Minami is located) is an industrial working class city with many factories and a large entertainment district. The city we shall call Kaigan, where Hoku is located, is a cultural center well known for its many temples and shrines. There are no factories in Kaigan or any entertainment district, outside of a few scattered bars and pubs. There are many communities just like Hoku in Kaigan, characteristic of an educated higher-class city population. Japan has an educational tracking system in which after relatively uniform elementary education and some variations in educational quality at the middle school level, students are sorted out and sent to different kinds and ranks of high schools based on academic achievement and school behavior.

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Although mandatory education ends with middle school, well over 90 percent of students go on to high school. High school rank is measured by a standardized high school rating system called “hensachi” in Japanese (see Kôkô Juken Annai 1999). The higher the rank of the high school, the more likely a student will go on to college. Similarly, the higher the high school rank, the better the college one will most likely enter. This educational system works to the advantage of the higher class since a surplus of capital is necessary in order to afford all of the extra preparation (tutoring, preparatory school called “juku” in Japanese and so forth) needed to get into a good high school. The schools in both cities reflect city ecological class differences. Most high schools in Shonan are low ranked, while all but one high school in Kaigan is middle or upper ranked. Eighty percent (8 of 10) of Shonan high schools are low ranked; nine of ten of these high schools are public and four of them are industrial, commercial or farm work related. In contrast, nine of ten or ninety percent of high schools in Kaigan are middle or upper ranked and half of these high schools are private, much more expensive and elite than public high schools. Most students attend local elementary and middle schools. Not only was the local middle school in Minami much more conducive to youth misbehavior but a further indicator of class differences was that a good number of Hoku students attended private, expensive and quite prestigious middle schools, while all Minami students attended the local middle school. The local middle schools also reflected on the area social economics of communities near Minami and Hoku, since the school zones extend beyond the boundaries of both communities. The Minami local middle school was said to be the worst in the city and was reported on in the newspaper for its student violence. Police have been called in and teachers have had to resort to forming a circle around the students and locking the school gates to keep students from leaving school. Students engaged in a good deal of misbehavior including smoking and inhaling paint thinner in the classrooms. In direct contrast, school officials and students at the Hoku local middle school all agreed that the school was relatively trouble-free and had a warm, trusting, open and friendly atmosphere. The only problem worth mentioning was that the few students from single parent families were not so well accepted by other students.

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4. Early Misbehavior and Gender Minami youngsters began their misbehavior at a younger age than Hoku youth. The largest differences in self-reported misbehavior were the ages of 15 and 16, with Minami youth reporting around twice the average of misbehavior reported by Hoku youth (Yoder 1986: 97). Furthermore, on the self-reported misbehavior checklist, Minami youth reported their misbehavior as first occurring at younger age than Hoku youth. Gender and area differences were seen in that males were more active in misbehavior than females and both Minami males and females reported a higher rate of misbehavior than their counterparts in Hoku. The greatest difference of misbehavior was between the females. Close to three times more Minami females reported being very active (4 or more acts) in misbehavior than Hoku females. Minami girls mature at an earlier age than Hoku girls do. Dating and hanging around game centers is commonplace for Minami girls at 13 or 14 years old, while Hoku girls don’t start these same activities until they are 15 or 16. In these activities and other ways (rate and types of misbehavior), working class Minami girls and boys were more similar to each other and quite different in their behavior from the higher class Hoku boys and girls. The pattern of misbehavior observed during the original and follow-up studies was as follows. Minami middle school students were more active in misbehavior than Hoku middle school students. Class disadvantages accompanied by troubles at the local middle school resulted in more Minami than Hoku youth ending up at low ranked high schools. Misbehavior escalated for students at low ranked high schools. They reported by far a much higher rate of misbehavior than that of students at higher ranked high schools. Table 1 shows that youth who attended low ranked high schools reported more than two times the rate of misbehavior reported by youth at higher ranked high schools and this did not differ by area or gender. Since proportionately more Minami students attended low ranked high schools, they reported on the average more misbehavior than Hoku youth.

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Table 1: High School Rank and Misbehavior, by Area and Gender Misbehavior Acts low

average

higher

Female

4.67 (3)

3 (7)

1.75 (4)

Male

6.5 (4)

3.92 (12)

2.68 (8)

Average

5.71 (7)

3.58 (19)

2.33 (12)

3.67 (3)

2.07 (27)

1.875 (24)

Male

12 (2)

5.17 (12)

3.8 (10)

Average

7 (5)

3.03 (39)

2.44 (34)

High School Rank Minami

Hoku Female

Note: Misbehavior includes the number of self-reported acts of misbehavior between 13 and 18 years of age. A number of Minami youth attending low ranked high schools at the time of the original study could not be contacted during the follow-ups and thus are left out here. This underestimates the number of Minami youth at low ranked high schools but not the misbehavior rate, since their misbehavior rate was quite high in the initial study, even though they had not finished high school.

Parental attachment and misbehavior varied little by area, high school rank, or family background. Troubles at school did somewhat relate to conflict in the home but then the school and not parents was the source of conflict. Thus control theory (see Kassebaum 1974 on control and other leading theories of juvenile delinquency), or the idea that family ties inhibit deviant activity, could not explain differences in misbehavior for these youngsters. Minami youth who were active in misbehavior came from the most disadvantaged family background and were very much “working” class kids. They knew from at least middle school that without a surplus of family income they would not receive all the preparation (tutoring, preparatory schools called juku in Japanese and so forth) needed to enter a good high school. At the local middle school or at least after entering a low ranked high school, they formed what Willis (1977) calls a counter-school culture. They opposed school authority, realizing that school offered them very little for their future. This rejection of middle class values embedded in the school system was

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symbolized by smoking, drinking, ditching school and other such activities that adults forbid youngsters to do. Some joined youth gangs (Bôsôzoku, or motorcycle gangs, were the most popular). The high school ranking system provided a perfect setting for all of this to happen. Bringing together all the students with a troubled (academic and behavior) middle school background and then putting them in the same high school simply either gives more incentive to continue an already existing counter-school culture, or provides the best opportunity to join in with one. This is exactly what the high school ranking system does when it channels all problem students to low ranked high schools. Students themselves are clearly labeled by high school rank. School officials know what kind of students they are getting from past experience. Trouble is expected at low ranked high schools, while students at higher ranked high schools are thought to be good kids. Their conformity is further enhanced by preparation for college entrance exams. Joining together different school expectations with different student populations (non-conformists and conformists) leads to quite a contrast in school atmosphere at low and higher ranked high schools. Students at low ranked high schools reported teacher violence and overly strict rules. Just about every student who attended a low ranked high school said they did not like school and that teacher relations were poor. They were not proud of their schools, with some expressing shame and embarrassment from being identified by others as belonging to such a school. They also got into trouble at school. Nearly half (5 of 12) of them were counseled for violation of school rules, with one suspended from school two times. (This is an underestimation, since a number of disadvantaged Minami youth could not be contacted in the follow-up studies and are left out here.) Students at higher ranked high schools freely commented on a rather open and relaxed school atmosphere, with most reporting that their schools were not strict at all. And, although all-girls’ schools were said to be rather strict, qualities of student-teacher relations were very good. Students adhered to the rules, thinking that these rules were made in the best interest of the students and they were going to go on to college. Almost all of these students were proud of their school, and some were explicitly proud of its high rank. They liked school and got along with their teachers, with more than ninety percent (31 of 34) being content with school life. Not one of these stu-

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dents mentioned receiving formal counseling or punishment from their school. Students not only were treated differently at high school because of high school rank, but the wearing of the school uniform subjects them to labeling by the public at large. Every school has its own required school uniform with a distinctive color and style, and students wear a pin on their school uniform identifying the name of their school. Since most students attend local high schools, those high schools are well known by other students and city residents as being of a certain type. All low ranked high schools attended by Minami students were located in Shonan, while the majority of higher ranked high schools attended by Hoku students were in Kaigan. Other students, neighbors, local residents and locals working in city shops or public offices associate students with the high school uniform they are wearing and thus the high school itself. The reputations of these schools follow the students wherever they go, further adding to a self-image that ties in with the rank and label of the school they attend.

5. Minami and Hoku Young Adults Today Only about ten percent (2 of 17) of students who attended low ranked high schools went on to college, compared with more than eighty percent (39 of 47) of students who attended higher ranked high schools. Most of those whose education stopped at high school (11 of 15) are from Minami and come from the lowest family backgrounds. Only one of eleven Minami high school graduates had a parent with a college degree, while three lived in a single parent family. By contrast, more than seventy percent (30 of 41) of college graduates are from Hoku. College graduates came from the highest family background. With one exception, they come from two-parent families. More than ninety percent (31 of 34) had at least one parent with a college education, although information on parents’ education was missing in a few cases that are omitted from this analysis. The educational system contributed to what Willis (1977) calls a social reproduction: original class differences remained fairly much the same when these youngsters became young adults. Working class youngsters from Minami were heavily over-represented (13 of 19) among young adults with the lowest educational level of high school graduate or below. These Minami male young adults began full-time

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employment at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, working at occupations such as mechanic, construction worker and truck driver. One works as a train operator and another is a salary-man. The final male Minami young adult suffers from mental illness that, according to his mother, came from the stress of the examinational system. He has never worked and is still living at home with his parents. Working class Minami females with a high school education or below were even at a more disadvantaged position than the males, with not one of them even attempting a job career. They worked parttime, marriage being of foremost concern. All today are married to husbands mostly of the same SES background and are taking care of their children in working class homes. The few Hoku young adults with a high school education or below experienced downward intergenerational social mobility. One male from a middle class family (both of whose parents are college graduates) never finished high school. He married but then divorced and today works as an outside salesman. Four of five Hoku females married, and all but one is working part-time. One Hoku female remains single and works in a clerical job as an office lady. Youngsters who were not as academically successful as those going on to college, but of a higher family background than high school graduates, went to special schools. Most are from Hoku (5 of 7) and these schools prepared them for a job career. All of them found jobs related to what they studied: for five Hoku youth this meant full-time work as nurse, designer (fashion and interior), photographer and barber. A Minami male today works at a hotel after studying hotel management. The lone Minami female worked at a pet shop after graduating from animal trimming school, but today is a housewife with two small children. That better-off kids get the best education and best jobs clearly is seen among the college graduates. Coming from higher-class families, the college graduates lead middle class life styles and are on the road to an upper-middle class status just like their parents. Most (more than 70%) are from Hoku and they have the most prestigious and secure jobs. Among Hoku young adults, three are employed in the professions (teacher, chiropractor and pharmacist) and one is a manager in his grandfather’s company. Ten females are housewives who married within their own social class. All of the rest (males and females) are white-collar workers, some working for large prestigious Japanese companies. And, among Minami young adults, one Minami female

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college graduate is a teacher. While all the females are married, their husbands are of a matching social status (spouse’s education was not obtainable in some cases). Every Minami male college graduate is a middle class salary-man.

6. Delinquency Controls Minami youngsters faced more extensive delinquency controls in and near their community than Hoku youth. The Minami Crime Prevention Association was very active in delinquency prevention. Members of this association plastered anti-delinquent campaign posters in the neighborhood, patrolled the neighborhood looking for youth misbehavior, held meetings castigating wrongful youth behavior and worked together with other delinquency prevention organizations to stamp-out juvenile delinquency. There has never been an active Crime Prevention Association in Hoku. The only result of all this was that Minami youngsters disliked and voiced greater opposition to such adult delinquency-prevention activities than Hoku youth (Yoder 1986: 116–125). Minami youth had far more police contacts than Hoku youth. Fiftynine (13 of 22) percent of Minami youth, compared to only twelve (5 of 43) percent of Hoku young adults, reported having been stopped and questioned by the police during adolescence. Most police actions involved suspicion of wrongful youth behavior; only a few youth were actually written up for violation of a criminal offense. Not one youth had anything positive to say about these police encounters, with the most negative responses coming from Minami youngsters since they were more likely to be stopped for doing nothing wrong.

7. Conclusion A continual pattern of pre-delinquency emerged out the original and two follow-up studies. Disadvantaged working class youngsters in Minami rebelled against adult authority and formed a counter-school culture in response to their hopeless and meaningless situation of failing to achieve success in a rigid, middle class oriented educational system. This counter-school culture was further fueled by the isolation and labeling of predominantly working class youngsters at low ranked

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high schools. In addition, stringent adult delinquent controls were applied against Minami but not Hoku youngsters in and near the community where they live. Labeled as “misfits” along with never really feeling a part of middle class culture, disadvantaged working class Minami youth were by far the most active youth in misbehavior. One of the functions of delinquency control is to preserve the status quo. This is done through the sorting of students into different ranked high schools. The isolation and bunching together of school failures and troublemakers at low ranked high schools kept them away from and thus minimized their influence on students at higher ranked high schools. This facilitated conformity not just by separating the nonconformists from the conformists, but also from the social reproduction of ensuring that students from quite similar class backgrounds were kept together. Students at higher ranked high schools formed friendships, went on to college, got the better jobs, married within their own social class and maintained the very social class privileges given to them by their parents. They have learned that achievement and conformity comes from privilege and adherence to the rules set forth by authority figures, regardless of the content. Today, as advantaged young adults, they will do all they can to ensure that their children follow the same path of conformity as they did. Actual youth crime, police arrests and punitive actions taken against youth offenders are, I would argue, inversely related to social class and high school rank (for example, the lower the class and school rank the higher the juvenile delinquent arrest rate). This is the result of differential labeling and reproduction of class advantage and disadvantage, rather than any natural proclivity toward delinquency among lower class youth. School problems such as violence in the school, absentee and drop-out rates and even today’s defiance of school dress codes by outlandish wearing of the school uniform, bleached and perm hair and body piercing should be seen as part of a counter-school culture found at lower and not higher ranked schools. The dislike of school and high rates of misbehavior by working class youngsters in this study had more to do with antagonisms between the school system and students than with student-teacher relations. These problems were also unrelated to parent-child relations. Consequently, there would have to be radical changes in the ranking system and less advantages given to students from higher class families to get at the root problem of youth deviance. It is unlikely that this hierarchical educational system will change; however, a few

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workable solutions within it can be suggested. Either getting rid of school uniforms all together or having all students wear the same uniform could dilute the stigma attached to attendance at low ranked high schools. Practical courses at low ranked high schools, oriented to attendance at special schools and making these schools affordable for lower class students, would tone down student antagonisms. Finally, making college more accessible to all by providing an alternative to college entrance aside from entrance exams at all universities, as well as offering financial assistance to those who need it, would give hope to someday going to college for disadvantaged students and late bloomers. Nation-wide government educational reform measures will go into effect in 2002. Based on the assumption that young people today are weak in character, these reform measures emphasize instilling stronger moral values and greater national pride among young people. Not just the schools but also the family and community are being asked by the government to work harder at making young people better Japanese (Japan Times 2000; Kreitz-Sandberg 2000). Nothing is mentioned about the inequality inherent to the school ranking system, class and gender disadvantages, or the different sub-cultures among youth themselves. This call for stronger moral values and greater national pride certainly has no appeal or meaning to the working class youngsters that I have known during the past two decades. It also must make conforming youth wonder just what it is they have to do to keep up with the demands of quite antiquated older generation values and expectations. Future research would benefit from looking at youth deviant behavior and actions of social control agents as linked with social class and the different quality and status of schools, at least from middle school on. Ethnographic accounts of varied youth culture groups are also needed for us to learn about and appreciate different life styles among youth from their perspectives.

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8. References DeVos, George A./Wagatsuma, Hiroshi (1984): Heritage of Endurance: Family Patterns and Delinquency Formation in Japan. Berkeley, California: University of California Press. Foljanty-Jost, Gesine (2000): Young Workers in Japan. Social Science (Newsletter of the Institute of Social Science, University of Tokyo) vol. 18, pp. 22–26. —— (2001). “Heartful guidance”: Fighting Juvenile Delinquency in a Japanese Community. In: Arne Holzhausen (ed.): Can Japan Globalize? Studies on Japan’s Changing Political Economy and the Process of Globalization in Honour of Sung-Jo Park. Heidelberg: Physica Verlag, pp 229–244. Hanzai Hakusho (1992): Hanzai Hakusho (White Papers on Crime). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Hoshino, Kanehiro (1983): Applicability of American Etiological Theories to the Explanation of Crime in Japan, Unpublished Manuscript, Tokyo: National Institute of Police Science. Japan Times (2000): June 2, Tokyo: Japan Times. Kassebaum, Gene (1974): Delinquency and Social Policy. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Kôkô Juken Annai (1999): Kôkô Juken Annai (Guide to High School Entrance Examination). Yokohama: Kanto Publishing Company. Kreitz-Sandberg, Susanne (2000): Modes of Change and Matters of Continuity. Reforms in Japanese High Schools, Unpublished Manuscript presented at the 2000 International Symposium on Educational Reforms & Teachers Education Innovation for the 21st Century, Tokyo: Waseda University. Liska, Allen E. (1987): Perspectives on Deviance. 2 nd Edition, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Lofland, John (1969): Deviance and Identity. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall. Seishônen Hakusho (1999): Seishônen hakusho (White Papers on Youth). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Steinhoff, Patricia G. (1993): Pursuing the Japanese Police. Law & Society Review 27 (4), pp. 827–850. Keisatsuchô 1984: Keisatsu hakusho (White Paper on Police) Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku Willis, Paul (1977): Learning to Labor. Columbia University Press: New York. Yoder, Robert S. (1986): A Pattern of Predelinquency for Youth in Two Suburban Japanese Communities. Ph.D. Diss. University of Hawaii.

THE REFORM OF THE JAPANESE EDUCATION SYSTEM AS AN ANSWER TO DELINQUENCY Hidenori Fujita

1. Introduction Many societies, faced with an increase in various juvenile problems including delinquency, violence, bullying and psychic disorders, are now worried about the future of their children. Japan is no exception. Amid a series of shocking murder cases perpetrated by junior high school students, including the murder of an elementary school pupil in Kobe City in 1997 and the stabbing to death of a junior high school teacher by a student in Kuroiso City in 1998, there has been much talk about the need to reduce the stress and pressure on students that give rise to this delinquent and deviant behavior, improve “emotional education”, and restore the educational capacity of the family and the community. At the same time, the debate has begun to turn to such topics as revising the Juvenile Law and lowering the age from which punishments can be handed out, that is, from 16 to 14. However, many of these discussions are merely a continuation of the conventional debate about Japanese education; they are stereotypical and full of contradictions. Many of the discussions appear to simply follow the mixed trends of progressive and market-oriented educational reform as seen in Europe and the United States. As is widely known, it was Emile Durkheim (1922, 1925) who defined education as organized methodological socialization and attached great importance to education as a means of maintaining and reproducing the moral order of society. Throughout the twentieth century and up to the present, education has been considered one of the major strategic efforts for coping with various social disorder problems including juvenile delinquency and anti-social behaviors. Accordingly, educational reform has often been promoted as an answer to juvenile delinquency and anti-social behavior.

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As the situation now stands, there are at least three aspects that we need to consider. First, the role of education is much wider than simply coping with problems of delinquency and anti-social behavior through transmitting moral values to the youngsters and developing moralistic and orderly behavior patterns among them. Its major role is rather to transmit legitimate knowledge and culture to members of the younger generation and thereby cultivate them in order to develop their human character and productive capacity and make them functional citizens and capable workers (Durkheim 1922). Therefore, education reform has also been promoted to serve this major purpose by responding to various new needs, demands and concerns of education in a changing society. We need to investigate the functional relationship between educational reform and these needs, demands and concerns. Second, the problems of delinquency and anti-social behavior are not only those pertaining to the fact, but also those views and concerns about them and their impact on the social order. As is often pointed out, for example, the statistics of delinquency reflect not only real incidents, but also the definition of delinquency, the ways of handling the cases among those who construct the statisticsand the round-up practices of the police. The images and concerns of the policy makers and the general public about delinquency tend to reflect how the mass media deal with them. Therefore, we need to make a careful examination of these images and views among the persons concerned and how reform measures are influenced. Third, education on the one hand now functions through a highly structured and multi-faceted school system and on the other represents, along with educational reform, more or less an ideological and value-loaded endeavor. Furthermore, the effects of education and its reform are very often neither short term nor straightforward, but rather long term, indirect and latent. As a result, the planning and assessment of educational reform should be careful and rational, avoiding any ideological bias and considering its long-term direct and indirect effects. This is especially important in the cases where reform arguments tend to be influenced and dominated by sensationalism and ideological concerns. This is often the case when the issue is centered on delinquency and anti-social behavior. Keeping these three aspects in mind, this paper examines educational reform in Japan in relation to juvenile delinquency and antisocial behavior. To do this, the first section proposes an analytical

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framework. The second takes a bird’s-eye view of educational reform and policies in Japan over the last five decades in relation to sociocultural changes and juvenile delinquency, identifying the four historical stages of school-related disorder problems and their associated perspectives. The third section investigates and assesses current educational reforms and the ideological concerns behind it. Finally, the fourth part discusses the roles of education in the twenty-first century and its limits and possibilities as an answer to delinquency.

2. An Analytical Framework of Education Reform and Juvenile Delinquency

2.1 Analytical Framework on Education Reform There are several different approaches used to explain the process of educational change and expansion (Karabel/Halsey 1977). For example, the functional approach tries to explain educational change and expansion by the functional necessities that emerge along with sociocultural, economic or technological changes (Clark 1962). The human capital approach emphasizes the importance of economic incentives and explains educational expansion by referring to the expected economic benefits of schooling as a human investment (Schultz 1961). The neo-Marxian approach attaches great importance to educationrelated interests of ruling classes (Bowles/Gintis 1976), while the neoWeberian approach emphasizes the importance of conflicting concerns over education among different status groups and explains educational expansion as a dynamic process of status competition among social groups (Collins 1971). The neo-institutional approach thinks much of the inner logic of the educational system and explains worldwide educational expansion as being an autonomous diffusion process accelerated by the normative concerns and perspectives associated with schooling (Meyer 1977; Meyer/Rowan 1977; Meyer et al. 1977). There are also efforts to synthesize various models that explain educational expansion. For example, J. Craig (1982) proposed an interactive model that considers the education system and its expansion as being composed of and influenced by the following three major elements: “environments” composed of the socio-cultural and eco-

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nomic subsystems, “actors” composed of primary actors such as children and their parents as customers and corporate actors such as the state, private companies, religious groups and professional groups, and “education”, which consists of both formal and non-formal education. M. Archer (1982) proposed a model of educational expansion in which the three developmental stages of “take-off”, “expansion” and “inflation” and the three dimensions of “structure”, “mechanism of growth” and “motivation of individuals” are distinguished, and the mechanism of its growth is explained as interactive processes among primary and corporate actors. All of these approaches and models are suggestive and have some validity, but they are not substantial enough to explain modern educational changes in general and current educational reform movements in Japan in particular. This is probably because their major concern is not with the micro-dynamics and power relations regarding educational reform but with the macro-dynamics of long-term educational change and expansion. And, of course, this is neither the fault of each researcher nor the deficiency of each approach/model mentioned above. I propose here the following analytical framework for investigating education reform movements. It is important to consider the following five factors and to examine the dynamic relationships among them along with their sub-factors: (1)“environments”, the major components of which are the cultural, social, economic and political spheres, (2) the “educational system”, the major components of which are the school system, curriculum, educational practices, administration and governance as well as their structure, functioning and legitimacy, (3) “actors”, the major components of which are children and parents as beneficiaries (primary actor 1), teachers, other school employees and administrators as service providers (primary actor 2), interest groups such as the state, private companies, religious and other voluntary groups and the teachers’ union (collective actor 1), and policy makers and those who are influential in reform arguments and policy making such as politicians, high-level bureaucrats, mass media commentators and critics (collective actor 2), (4) “ideologies and perspectives” on education and education reforms, and (5) “issues and problems” related to education and educational reform as well as children’s lives, juvenile delinquency and social welfare. As for factor (4), at least the following four dimensions can be identified: the first is the functional dimension where improving func-

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tional rationality or efficiency in response to mainly economic and technological needs tends to be a major goal and organizing principle; the second is the political dimension, where the issue centers around educational opportunity and governance and where improving and maintaining equality of opportunity and participation have gradually become a major organizing principle at least at the manifest level throughout the twenty-first century; the third is the pedagogical and cultural dimension where successful learning, healthy character development and self-realization, whatever image people have in mind by these terms, are major concerns; the fourth is the social dimension where the major concerns, manifest or latent, are on social and political integration, social and moral order, and/or the mode of social relations or co-existence within the community. Educational reforms are negotiated and promoted by various actors who have special interests and concerns with education. Some actors advocate the urgent necessity of reform, pointing out education-related problems and/or environmental changes as reasons for it, while others may say that it is not necessary. There may also be different and often-conflicting reform measures proposed by different actors. Those standpoints and reform measures usually reflect the differences in interests and concerns about education, in ideology and perspective on education, and in the interpretation of education-related problems and environmental changes. The actors concerned express and try to realize their own views and ideas on the issue through the mass media and at public meetings of various levels such as town meetings, governmental councils and local/national assemblies. Thus, any educational reform movement takes place and goes on through public discourse and power politics among the actors concerned. Its outcome usually reflects the voices, interests and proposals of more influential actors in public discourse and power politics. Accordingly, any reform accomplished is neither necessarily functional, nor rational, nor desirable. This seems particularly important in assessing the current education reform movements in Japan. 2.2 Analytical Framework on Juvenile Delinquency The second component of the analytical framework to be proposed here is about the approach to juvenile delinquency and anti-social behavior. How to control human violence and delinquency has always been an issue. In particular, since the emergence of our mobile and competitive modern industrial society, four approaches have been

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adopted to tackle this problem: the disciplinary, remedial/therapeutic, educational and environmental approach. The disciplinary approach targets those committed to or inclined to commit violence and delinquency and uses disciplinary, regulative and/or coercive power to punish assailants and delinquents or to prevent violence and delinquency. It aims to control violence, delinquency and crime by punishing and often isolating assailants, delinquents and criminals by making them repent and correct their behavioral patterns. At the same time it strives for providing a lesson for others, and thus preventing them from committing delinquent behavior. The remedial/therapeutic approach provides therapeutic treatment and remedial programs to the victims of violence, crime and other delinquent acts, to individuals who have developed delinquent inclinations because of their personal history and circumstances, and to those who have some responsibility for caring for the victims, assailants and delinquents. In contrast to these disciplinary and remedial/therapeutic approaches, which are ex post facto methods of dealing mainly with the narrow range of individuals concerned, the educational and environmental approaches advocate the need for and the effectiveness of preliminary preventive programs for many people. The educational approach targets children and people as a whole, and trys to cultivate minds that stay away from delinquency in order to nurture a sense of friendship, justice, and order, and foster a respect for sympathy, honor, and dignity. It believes that improving various educational programs is the most effective and promising way, even if the effect may be indirect and not easily observable in order to cope with delinquency problems as well as to maintain the order and security of social life and promote people’s welfare and happiness. The environmental approach emphasizes the importance of secure and healthy life environments including the family, the community, peer groups and the consumptive and information society as the factors for preventing and reducing violence, crime and delinquency, and tries to change and improve them. This approach argues that violence, crime and delinquency are induced and promoted by such factors as poverty, discrimination and prejudice, ill-treatment by parents and other adults, experiences of isolation and alienation, the excessive use of stimulants, the seductive and violent culture of the modern consumptive and information society, and so forth. Accordingly, it pro-

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poses the improvement of the quality of the living environment by eliminating various violent, seductive and damaging socio-cultural items here and there and by developing a healthy and caring community. In addition to these four approaches mentioned above, two modes of perspectives on the problems can be distinguished. One is individualistic orientation and the other is collective orientation. The former tends to emphasize the individual responsibility of violence and delinquency and the need to improve the effectiveness of coping strategies, while the latter tends to emphasize the collective responsibility of delinquency and the need to improve the quality of education and the living environment through cooperative efforts. In education, for example, this difference may appear as two different goals or organizing principles of education. In the former case, education would be organized to develop autonomous, self-reliant citizens or members of the individualized society, while in the latter it would be organized to develop cooperative and empathetic citizens. I do intend to say here which orientation is better. In any case, these two orientations have their own historical and theoretical backgrounds and all of the four above-mentioned approaches have some effectiveness. Modern societies rely on an unstable balance among these approaches and orientations and this balance characterizes each society, though it changes from time to time. It seems that Japanese society is regarded as being characterized by its overwhelming emphasis on the collective and cooperative orientation as well as educational and environmental approaches, while many western societies are regarded as having emphasized the disciplinary and remedial/therapeutic approaches along with the individualistic orientation. But this observation may need to be modified. This is because the balance among the above-mentioned approaches and orientations changes from time to time, and when one approach gains ascendancy; the other approaches become belittled and recede into the background In fact, recent Japanese educational reforms have been de-emphasizing the educational approach, while emphasizing and enforcing the disciplinary and remedial/therapeutic approaches. On the other hand, the importance of improving the quality of the living environment through developing a cooperative network among the school, the family and the community has been emphasized, although no effective

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measures have been discovered and implemented. This change in Japan will be examined and discussed in the section three below.

3. Post-War Social Change, Juvenile Problems and Educational Reforms in Japan This section examines how the perception of educational and juvenile problems has changed along with the expansion of education and socio-cultural changes during the latter half of the twentieth century in Japan (Figure 1). The process of educational expansion and socio-educational changes during this period can be divided into two major stages, and the second stage can be divided further into three sub-stages. Here, we call the first stage, the expansion stage and the second, the restructuring stage. 3.1 Expansion Stage Throughout the first stage from the late 1940s to the middle 1970s, school education expanded rapidly. The enrollment ratio rose from about 50% to over 90% at post-secondary level and from about 10% to about 50% at higher education level. How rapid this expansion is could be easily imagined if readers consider that it happened within only one generation. This rapid expansion based on the open, single-track “6-3-3-4” school system and was promoted by the increasing need for educated manpower, the growing demand for high school and university education, and the institutionalization of the credential labor market (Fujita 1976, 1979). Accordingly, the expansion of this stage can be well explained by the functional approach that emphasizes the growing need for educated manpower as well as by the neo-Weberian approach that attaches great importance to status competition among various social groups.

Figure 1: Educational Expansion and Juvenile Problems expansion stage (industrialization and rise of schooled society)

enrollment ratio (%) quasicompulsory stage

restructuring stage (rise of information society and expansion of service industry) problems inside the school

juvenile problems outside the school

100 90

violence school phobia against school teachers and rejecting violence and bullying school vandalism High school dropout

masses of hot rodders youngsters move to juvenile urban areas for criminals employment

universal stage

rejecting school

*ratio of juvenile criminals involved with violent activities (‰)

street delinquency 50

4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5 2.0

mass stage

high school education

1.5 1.0

15 elite stage

0.5

higher education 1950

1955

1960

1965

1970

1975

Source: Fujita 1991, *Data of ratio of juvenile criminals from Hirota, T. 2001

1980

1985

1990

1995

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During this period, major problems of juvenile delinquency happened outside the schools. In the late 1940s and 1950s, many youngsters committed crime and delinquency amid the devastation and anomy of society. Social and educational policies therefore were oriented toward reconstructing the economy and society, developing both school and non-school education, and restoring moral among the people. In the 1950s and 1960s, as the economy started to grow, the massive numbers of youngsters moved into the urban industrial areas for employment just after graduating from junior and senior high schools. Society again observed many incidents of street violence and delinquency. Therefore, during this period, it was one of the major social concerns how they should adapt themselves to new urban environments and live healthy lives. Then, in the 1960s, as rapid economic growth started to raise the standard of living, such delinquency problems as theft and the actions of hot-rodders (motorcycle gangs) increased and became the social concerns to be tackled. It is noteworthy that almost all of these juvenile problems happened outside the school, or at least, were viewed as such. As a result, all the people concerned could believe in the effectiveness of education to tackle those problems, and promoted the expansion of schooling as well as developed various educational and community programs both inside and outside schools. In this respect, throughout this expansion stage, both the educational and environmental approaches were predominant and various strategic programs based on these approaches were supported and introduced. 3.2 Restructuring Stage In the late 1970s, enrollment ratios of high school education and higher education increased to over 90% and over 40% respectively. Since then, the expansion of the former has peaked out and that of the latter has continued without slowing down. Ironically, it is during this period that various maladjustment and disorder problems happened in school, particularly in junior and senior high schools. First, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s, school violence and vandalism occurred in many high schools throughout the country. Violence against teachers also happened in many high schools toward the middle of the 1980s. Bullying occurred in many elementary and junior high schools, showing its peak in 1985–86.

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Both school violence and bullying at that time were really serious, showing symptoms of group hysteria. These incidents of violence, vandalism and bullying received great attention among media commentators, education critics and policy makers as well as ordinary people, and soon became a major public issue. The mass media repeatedly made reports on these incidents and education critics and scholars wrote many books and articles on these problems, defining them as “school pathology” or “education pathology”. They accused the regulative school culture including school rules and regulations as well as severe entrance examinations for senior high schools and universities as the causes or backgrounds. Thus, to cope with these problems, schools started to restore the school community in cooperation with parents and relaxed their rules and regulations. The Ministry of Education revised the curriculum guidelines to increase the number of elective subjects and to reduce the content of major subjects, advocated a more responsive teaching style and open-minded classroom management. Moreover it promoted the diversification of the entrance examination systems by such measures as expanding the selection of entrants by recommendation and reducing the number of required subjects for entrance examination. These reform measures were enacted in order to reduce school violence, vandalism and bullying by the late 1980s significantly, but all of them continued to flourish. In addition, since around the middle of the 1980s, high school dropouts that had been increasing since the late 1970s started to attract media attention. Furthermore, since the middle of the 1980s those who have rejected going to school (including truants but coming under the category of “school phobia” in Japan) have gradually increased and also have attracted great public attention. 3.3 The Third Major Educational Reform and Its Characteristics Taking all of these problems seriously, the government set up the National Council of Education (NCE) as an ad hoc advisory committee to the Prime Minister in 1984 and launched the third major educational reform in Japan. The first reform was the establishment of a modern, meritocratic education system during the Meiji Restoration period, the successive developments of which had gradually transformed the growth, the learning, and the lives in general of children from the traditional to the modern, rational forms. The second reform occurred in the late 1940s. The fundamental Law of Education and the

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School Education Law, both issued in 1947, have laid a foundation for the democratic and egalitarian ideology of schooling in Japan ever since with the single-track “6-3-3-4” school system. Under this system, Japan has achieved one of the highest levels of schooling, as illustrated by such measures as the enrollment ratio, graduation rates, daily attendance, equality of opportunity, and academic performance. Six years of elementary and three years of lower secondary education is compulsory and free. About 97 percent of the age cohort are enrolled at three-year senior high schools, and over 90 percent of these students graduate from high school. Some 60 percent of the age cohort are enrolled at higher education institutions including four-year universities, two-year junior colleges and three-year special training colleges. The daily attendance rates of elementary and secondary school are above 95 percent. Equality of opportunity is secured by the single-track school system, the neighborhood school system at the elementary and lower secondary level and meritocratic entrance examinations for senior high schools and universities. The high quality of teaching and learning has been demonstrated by the international comparative studies on student performance in math and science conducted by the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA) in the periods 1964–70, 1978, and 1994–95. Each time the average scores of Japanese students were among the top three countries. The results of these comparative studies and Japan’s post-war economic success have attracted the attention of other countries to Japanese schooling since the late 1970s. Furthermore, several scraps of comparative data suggest that school disorder problems such as vandalism, violence against peers and teachers and even bullying are not necessarily more serious in Japan than in several developed Western countries (Lawrence, 1998, Morita, 1998, Kiyonaga, 2000). It is ironic, however, that Japan launched the third major educational reform by setting up the NCE in 1984, just when many other countries were paying attention to and trying to learn from Japanese schooling. NCE spent three years reviewing the nation’s education system and generated four reports to the prime minister that have been the basis of subsequent neo-liberal and neo-conservative reform movements. Based on the recommendations of NCE and several other councils concerned, various reform measures have been introduced and implemented at all levels of education from elementary to higher education.

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Among them, the following are the major ones introduced at the elementary and secondary education levels: 1. the phased introduction of a five-day school week, which first made one and then two Saturdays per month as days off, and finally will make all Saturdays as days off from the year 2002, 2. the revision of curriculum guidelines along with the full-introduction of a five-day school week. It reduced the number of lesson hours and the content for most subjects, including math, Japanese language and sciences on the one hand, and on the other, created a new subject entitled “comprehensive studies” (105 lesson hours per year at the elementary level and 70 lesson hours at the lower secondary level) to encourage students to think for themselves and express themselves, 3. the introduction of combined junior and senior high school education (six-year secondary schools) which will inevitably lead to the transformation of the existing single-track 6-3-3 school system into a partially multi-tracked one, 4. relaxing of the neighborhood “assigned” school system in elementary and lower secondary education which, along with the introduction of the six-year secondary school, will make “school choice” a major issue of the next decade and will bring with it the problems of school ranking and tracking at the lower secondary education level, 5. the gradual introduction of the school counselor or school psychologist into elementary and secondary schools. Another departure from the past pattern has been growing at the upper secondary education level. Where general academic and vocational education have been the two core curricula, a third “integrated senior high school” pattern has been added, having the kinds of curriculum patterns found in U.S. magnet schools. An advancement system based on subject credits rather than grades has also been adopted by some senior high schools to make the learning paths of individual students more flexible and thereby make high school education more attractive. It should be noted here that most of these reform measures, (1), (3) and (4) in particular, have something to do with the opportunity of schooling. In fact, the reform measures of (1), (3) and (4) have been supported and requested mainly by urban middle and upper-middle classes, urban intellectuals, business leaders and politicians, who commit themselves to neo-liberal ideology. It should also be noted

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that the real albeit hidden reason for introducing a five-day school week, that is measure (1), was to promote two weekly holidays in society and thereby reduce the working hours of workers including public school teachers. Measure (2), the revision of the curriculum guidelines, is, of course, associated with and necessitated by measure (1), as mentioned above. These are the reasons why we call the period from the late 1970s “the restructuring stage”. As suggested by the above illustration, this restructuring has been characterized by reform measures promoting deregulation and devolution in school management and educational administration, the quasi-market competition among schools, and the privatization of schooling and child-rearing, as can be observed through similar trends taking place in many western countries such as the UK and the USA. Now, the question arises: Why does Japan need to carry out these reforms and what are their objectives? Are these reforms effective for the above-mentioned juvenile and school-disorder problems? Who and what forces have promoted these reforms and whose benefits will be realized? What will be the outcomes of these reforms and what are the critical problems brought about by these reforms? To answer these questions, the next section will examine the recent reform movements and the arguments and rhetoric behind them (details of which will be found in the following articles and books of the author: Fujita 1991a, 1991b, 1993a, 1993b, 1995, 1996, 1997a, 1997b, 1998a, 1998b, 1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b, 2001a, 2001b).

4. Today’s Juvenile Problems and Educational Reform in Japan

4.1 Four Major Background Factors of Current Educational Reform There is a second irony. Since the 1970s onward, many countries have appreciated Japanese education as a successful model. Just as this appreciation began to spread among many countries, the Japanese media, educational critics and policy makers began to claim Japanese schooling was outmoded and in need of a drastic overhaul. As other countries sought to improve the scholastic achievement levels of their students as an overriding educational objective, Japan was beginning to say it was more important to allow students more freedom and

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flexibility and more room to encourage individuality and creativity, even at the expense of academic standards, educational efficiency and equal opportunity of education. In other words, Japan has been moving in a direction opposite to that of Western countries. This is not to say, however, that Japanese education does not have any problems to be solved or dealt with, nor to say that Japan and the West do not share common features in current reform trends. Indeed, they have in common a growing tendency towards a more marketdriven, privatized approach to education. The question is what is behind this recent trend in Japanese educational reform. There are at least four major background factors and concerns (Fujita 1993b, 1995, 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 2000a, 2000b). As mentioned earlier, the first factor has been the upheaval of the so-called “school disorder” phenomena such as vandalism, violence, bullying and school-phobia since the late 1970s. It all began when the mass media took some active role in making sensational reports on several serious incidents that happened in schools and serious crimes that school children committed. Educational critics and researchers have responded by openly making comments on them and have elevated them into major public debates and discourse. Policy makers also soon found themselves being held up in these debates. Thus, the following strategies were adopted: framing these problems on a moral basis, scrutinizing the individual and the structure in which he or she is embedded and thereby locating legitimate solutions. I called this the “moralist” ideology in the current reform wave. The second factor is the rising concern with the needs and demands of a post-modern society. The advent of the information age, economic globalization and international competition, and a highly aging society, have become major concerns of policy makers, business and media people as well as educational critics. They have questioned the effectiveness and efficiency of Japanese schooling to meet various needs of the post-modern society that must continue to enjoy economic affluence and possess the capability to compete in the new globalized economy. These concerns have become a major incentive to promote reforms toward restructuring the system to be more flexible and diversified and revising the curricula for meeting these new needs. This can be called the “functionalist” ideology of the current reform wave. The third is the rising concern about the educational quality of the present system since so many pedagogical principles and styles of

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teaching and school management have been criticized as being obsolete and even distorting educational processes and children’s lives. For example, entrance examinations to senior high schools and universities have been criticized as being too competitive, posing heavy pressures on children, parents and teachers, and thus, causing negative effects. The centrally regulated system of educational administration and control is criticized as being inefficient for coping with a wide variety of people’s demands and needs in a changing society. Changes have been called for in order to replace traditional practices with more flexible, progressive ones in such areas as curriculum, classroom organization, and styles of teaching, school rules, and discipline. This factor can be called the “progressive or liberal educationist” approach. The fourth factor is related to the recent trend of wider reform movements in the system of finance, banking and economic structure in general. When the Japanese came to be aware of a so called “bubble economy” and its collapse, reform initiatives soon got organized and became institutionalized in order to match the economic crisis and social problems. Indeed, launching reforms itself has become the supreme goal and purpose in current Japanese society, being fueled by the growing concern with “accountability”. Thus, crisis and reform have become a legitimate pair for social progress. Such a phenomenon has engendered a belief in “reform-supremacy”. This has been particularly distinct in the field of education. Furthermore, it should be noted that the guiding principles of wider reform movements are deregulation, liberalization and accountability. While reflecting on this general trend as well as the second and third factors, reform initiatives in education have also been oriented toward deregulation, liberalization, marketization and privatization in principle. These four factors accelerated current reform initiatives in a radical manner, but with many contradictions and deceptive arguments. 4.2 Peculiar Rhetoric of Current Educational Reform The reform movement has been ruled and promoted by progressive, neo-liberal and neo-conservative arguments, which overlap each other to a significant extent. Many educational critics who are mostly committed to progressive ideas have emphasized individuality, self-realization, self-cultivation, and freedom in learning, and have argued that the “cramming” education, standardized curriculum, uniform teaching, and strict school management obstruct authentic learning, a

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stress-free human life, and the development of individuality and creativity. Neo-liberals have stressed the importance of freedom and choice in education. They have criticized the state monopoly in education, and have argued that freedom of school choice and the existence of a variety of alternative schools are the prerequisites for releasing children from the pressure of entrance examinations. They expect reforms, which will repair the deteriorating school climate, offer incentives to learn in an affluent society, and improve the quality of schools and children’s lives in general. Neo-conservatives have emphasized the importance of national integration and moral order. Furthermore they stress the necessity for deregulation and the improvement of education to cope with socioeconomic changes such as computerization and globalization and the rebuilding of a strong economy. Thus they have also argued with neoliberals that market competition is more effective than state monopoly because it will stimulate creative endeavors, raise incentives to learn, and thus improve education. The mass media and critics have repeatedly brought up serious cases of bullying, violence against teachers and peers, and juvenile crimes. They have commented that these cases and the reported statistics are only the tip of the iceberg and that our children are being damaged by too much education and distorted schooling. They have suggested that it is our moral duty to save our children from such a suffocating situation and, therefore, radical educational reforms are urgently called for. These arguments, orchestrated together, have brought on a new tide of neo-liberal and neo-conservative reform efforts. This new tide is not only both neo-liberal and neo-conservative, but also seems to have an aspect of “reform-supremacy”. Reform itself seems to be the goal, not a means to improve education. Policy makers are now eager to proceed with reforms for their own sake in Japan’s radically changing political landscape. This change began in the late 1970s, but accelerated especially after the breakdown of the Berlin Wall and the subsequent collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe. That is, the ideological opposition finally came to an end, political parties repeated factional alignments, politicians became more responsive to the public at least in appearance, and the notion of accountability began to spread. The collapse of Japan’s “bubble economy”, the subsequent economic and financial crisis, has accelerated this process and forced

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the government to deregulate and restructure the economy, namely, the financial and the administrative structure. Under these circumstances, deregulation and reformism became a general trend in the field of policy-making, and educational policy was no exception. Unfortunately, however, current policy arguments and reform measures in elementary and secondary education seem to be irrational and deceptive. Proponents of the current reform movement always bring up school disorder and maladjustment problems as well as juvenile crimes and justify the reform measures by saying that they are coping with these problems. But there is no rational reason or any evidence to show that these problems will be solved by the abovementioned reform measures. These measures have nothing to do with school disorder problems but much to do with the structure of educational opportunity. To illustrate this weakness of current reform arguments, let us consider one of the recent incidents of juvenile crime and its associated arguments calling for the urgency of radical educational reform. 4.3 Sensational Treatment of the “Sakakibara” Incident and the Following Reform Initiatives In May 1997, an elementary school boy was murdered in Kobe, and his severed head was left in front of a school with the following note: “Well, this is the beginning of the game. Stupid police, stop me if you can. It’s great fun for me to kill people. I desperately want to see people die. The death penalty for dirty vegetables. A sentence of bloodshed over my great grudge piled up over many years. School killer. School killer Sakakibara.” The killer also sent a second note to a newspaper saying “I can be relieved of daily hatred and feel great peace of mind only when I am committing murder” and “so far, and from now on, I have continued a transparent existence, but I want you to recognize me as a real human being at least in your fantasies.” The remaining body of the murdered boy was discovered in the afternoon of May 27, the same day as his head was found in front of the school. For about a month after that, the media carried almost daily reports on the investigations and pieced together possible images of the criminal. Without exception, the weekly magazines carried photos of the victim, and many scholars commented that the crime was probably perpetrated by an adult who had a deep hatred of school, adding interpretations of the criminal’s mental state.

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About a month after the crime, a third-grade junior high school boy, A was arrested as a suspect. He confessed to committing the crime and also slash-and-run attacks on two girls, one of whom died. These attacks had taken place in March 1997, also in Kobe’s Suma Ward. So the incident immediately changed into one involving juvenile and educational problems. After the arrest of a 14-year-old junior high school student as a suspect, the media carried reports on the family environment and school experience of this youngster almost daily throughout the year, along with comments by scholars and letters from readers, and examined the cruelty and background of the case. The government was also very busy in its response. The director general of the Management and Coordination Agency stated that regulations on publications and television programs were under consideration. The chief cabinet secretary said that there was a need to consider countermeasures, including a revision of the Juvenile Law; and in the Prime Minister’s Office, a liaison council of related ministries and agencies confirmed their policy of strengthening cooperation toward the prevention of heinous crimes by juveniles. Furthermore, the education minister requested the sixteenth Central Council for Education, which was reconvened in September of the same year, to reexamine the role of emotional education from infancy. Also, it was decided to bring forward the full implementation of the five-day school week from 2003, as originally scheduled, to 2002. Amid this sensational response by the media and hyperactive moves in various quarters, countermeasures had been decided and the reorganization of education had been carried out without any proper investigation into the problems and backgrounds and was governed by irrationality, self-righteousness, elitism, and egoism. This judgment may be validated by the fact that almost all reform measures prompted since then have been those mentioned in the previous section and aimed at reorganizing the structure of educational opportunity, in addition to the introduction of a school counselor into schools and the revision of the Juvenile Law. This reorganization threatens to demolish the foundation of the good intentions and efforts of schools and teachers and undermines the foundation of the functioning and legitimacy of school education in Japan. This aspect will be discussed later in section five. In addition to this functional problem, there is another critical problem. That is, the recent discussion of educational and juvenile problems has been so

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warped that there is no recognition of the above-mentioned bias and distortion. So let us now take a look first of all at this bias and distortion. 4.4 Juvenile Crimes and Warped Criticism of Schools The “Sakakibara” Incident was certainly a shocking event. As stated above, various journals gave it sensational treatment and became very active. But their arguments and criticism of schools are biased and distorted. For example, the media and scholars focused on the expressions “transparent existence” and “my transparent self” that appeared in the above-mentioned crime note to the police as keywords for understanding today’s children. The incident was also positioned in the context of criticism of schools and educational reform. It was suggested that in the background lay such phenomena as “the state of blockage”, “the state of suffocation”, and “school stress”. A framework for interpreting the incident was established that lent support to the existence of “excess schooling” and the need for “slimmer schools” arguments. Moreover, even after the results of a psychological appraisal of the boy were announced, this framework had not basically been changed. Certainly the simplistic arguments blaming schools for the incident have declined relatively, but they are still referred to as reasons for the need and urgency of educational reform. The same framework of interpretation and rhetoric has been used for many other incidents of juvenile crimes and delinquency as well as school disorder problems. In January 1998, a junior high school boy stabbed to death a female teacher in his school at Kuroiso City, Tochigi Prefecture. Then in March 1998, a junior high school boy in the seventh grade stabbed and killed a boy in the same grade in Matsuyama, Saitama Prefecture. Since both murder incidents involved knives, some media commentators came out in criticism of a television drama called “Gift”, which was thought to have encouraged the purchase of knives by young people. There were discussions about the pros and cons of regulations on knives, regulations on harmful information, the introduction of the V-chip, a revision of the Juvenile Law, and the search through the personal belongings of students in schools. Also, since both incidents occurred in schools, they spurred outpourings of criticism against schools, teachers and education in general. In addition, the expression kireru kodomo, meaning “children who easily snap” became a fashionable term, and the media carried many on-thespot reports, analyses and comments by scholars.

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Furthermore, in May and June of 2000 when the National Council of Education Reform (NCER), set up as an advisory body for the Prime Minister in March of that year, started its meetings, several murder incidents occurred in which most of the criminals were 17 years old. The media and education critics again repeated the same interpretation and criticism of schools, making the expression “jûnana sai no hanzai”, meaning “crime of the youngsters aged 17” a fashionable term. All of these incidents were not seriously examined concerning their causes and backgrounds. But the media and education critics have always been in a hurry to repeat the same interpretation, criticize education and emphasize the urgency and necessity of radical educational reform. Even though it has been made clear that the boy “A” in the “Sakakibara” Incident had engaged in abnormal behavior since his elementary school days, and that he had a mental disorder, emphasis is still being placed on the fact that “A” was a junior high school student as the background to the incident. Stress is placed on the attitude of overly education-oriented parents, the high level of the local community’s enthusiasm for education, and the role of the stress-breeding school. Criticism of schools and calls for educational reform continue to be voiced. There seems to be a warped view or mentality that is not satisfied unless it can blame school education for everything.

5. Japanese Education at a Critical Crossroad

5.1 Divided and Contradictory Vision of Education for the Twenty-first Century In December 2000, after spending nine months reviewing Japanese education, the NCER submitted a report to the Prime Minister and proposed seventeen reform items, each of which contains three to five concrete reform measures. Based on those recommendations, the Ministry of Education devised the twenty-firsteducational reform plan called the “Rainbow Plan” in February 2001. Then in May, in order to implement some of the reform measures contained in it, the Ministry proposed the revision of several education laws concerned to the Diet including the School Education Law.

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The reform policies and measures contained in the “Rainbow Plan” are based on the NCER reform proposals, and many of them have been implemented successively. Accordingly, it is important to examine what kind of future vision is envisaged or proposed in the NCER report. The reform policies and measures proposed by the NCER are grouped into the following three categories: 1. Neo-liberal and market-oriented reforms of the school system such as the introduction and promotion of a “school choice” plan at elementary and lower secondary education levels, the expansion of the six-year secondary school, and the relaxation of the grade system to allow smart students to skip grades at senior high school and university education levels, 2. nationalistic and moralistic curriculum reforms such as the introduction of quasi-compulsory service activities in elementary and secondary education and a revision of the Fundamental Education Law in order to emphasize the importance of moral education, love for one’s family, locality and country, and the spirit of social service, and 3. policies and measures to improve educational practices, school management, educational administration and finance, and thereby the functioning of education. The educational vision envisaged in the report of the NCER and the “Rainbow Plan” of the Ministry of Education is divided between those features of the first category and those of the second category: The former aims to diversify the school system, to differentiate educational opportunities among various social groups, and to benefit the chosen few children and wealthier families. The reform thereby undermine the foundation of democratic education and society as well as the ground for developing the sense of belonging and the attitude toward the harmonious co-existence of various individuals and social groups. On the other hand, the reform emphasizes the importance of developing moral virtues, empathy towards others and the sense of social responsibility as well as love for one’s family, locality and country. It is not from the liberal perspective that assumes that education serves the goal of developing equal, autonomous citizens, but rather from the neo-conservative and nationalistic perspective that attaches great importance to developing national identity and moral order of the society.

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5.2 Biased Policies toward Juvenile Delinquency and School-Related Problems The previous pages examined recent education reforms and policy discourse in relation to juvenile delinquency and school-related problems in Japan. Various reform policies, measures and proposals mentioned earlier are grouped into the following seven categories: 1. reforms of the education system such as the introduction of a fiveday school week, the introduction of the six-year secondary school and the liberalization of school choice, 2. the revision of curriculum guidelines to reduce the number of lesson hours and the contents of subjects as well as to introduce the lesson hour entitled “comprehensive learning hours”, the encouragement of progressive and interactive teaching practices, the intensification of moral education, introduction and promotion of social experiences and service activities by revising the School Education Law and Social Education Law, and so on, 3 the expansion of site-based school management, the deregulation and devolution of educational administration, the improvement of teacher training programs 4. the improvement of the educational environment and the community-based support system for schools and teachers such as strengthening the cooperative relationships among the school, family, and community and the development of social education networks and programs, 5. the improvement of media environments by restricting harmful information and introducing the V-chip, 6. the improvement of the counseling and mental support system by establishing a consulting system by which teachers and parents can consult a medical doctor, psychiatrist, social worker, lawyer, police officer and so on, and 7. the revision of the Juvenile Law to provide stricter treatment of those who commit serious crimes and the revision of the School Education Law to suspend those who make serious trouble at school. The reform policies, categories (1) to (3), the nature of which were examined in an earlier section, are targeted mainly towards restructuring and improving school education. On the other hand, categories (4) to (7) have something to do with school disorder problems and juvenile delinquency, category (4) being related to both of them. Let

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us consider whether or not these policies and measures are relevant and effective for tackling various school disorder problems and juvenile delinquency. As already commented earlier, the reform measures of category (1) basically deal with the distribution of educational opportunities and therefore cannot be expected to be rational and functional for tackling problem behavior. Those of category (3) will result in the improvement of school management, teaching practices, school climate and the cooperative culture of each school, which in turn may have some effect on student behavior and attitudes. But this effect is indirect, and could be both positive and negative, depending on what kinds of changes really take place. On the other hand, the reform policies of category (2) and categories (4) to (7) have some connection with juvenile delinquency and student behavioral and attitudinal problems, and correspond to the four approaches to juvenile delinquency and anti-social behavior mentioned in the previous section. The reform policies and measures of category (2) belong to the educational approach mentioned earlier, and are largely divided into two categories: one is intended to improve school life in general and learning in particular, while the other is targeted to develop moral values and thereby reduce juvenile delinquency and behavioral problems. But again, whether both measures have a positive effect or not depends on how they are designed and practiced. In this respect, the author is critical of these measures. This is because it is quite unreasonable to implement these two measures along with the policy of radically reducing the total number of lesson hours and also because current reforms that include these measures emphasize the individualization and privatization of schooling, while at the ideological level they emphasize the importance of morality, conviviality, thoughtfulness to others, cooperation, national identity, and so forth It should also be noted that the reform measures of the first category of (2) and those of category (1) promote the individualization and relaxation of the learning process, which has been prominent in many Western countries. Those measures of the categories (4) and (5) belong to the environmental approach that attempts to improve the environment surrounding schools and children such as the family, the local community, the mass media, and the cooperative networks among school, family and various institutions in the local community. Needless to say, this policy is needed and desired. But it is quite questionable whether this policy can be effectively implemented and produce

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good lasting results. It is because these cooperative networks have not been improved in spite of the fact that their importance has been repeatedly emphasized in policy discourse and proposals. Their caring power has generally declined along with the advances of urbanization, the information society, and the consumption-oriented culture. For these reasons, the author has criticized the irrationality and irresponsibility of policies that propose the transfer of the caring functions from the school to these institutions and facilities. Two more points should be noted about the media and social education programs and facilities. Regarding the proposal of introducing the V-chip to restrict children from exposure to harmful information, it is necessary to consider various latent problems that accompany it such as the declining sense of responsibility among parents, the possibility of an even more overt barrage of extremely violent and sexual expressions as a counter-effect, and the possibility of infringing on the freedom of expression. Regarding the reform plan of improving various social education programs and facilities while reducing the role and functions of schooling, it should be realized that elementary and secondary schools provide educational services and a living environment for all children in the community while social education programs and facilities provide services and a living environment only for those who are willing to participate. In this respect, the caring function of these programs and facilities is far more limited than that offered by schools, and our empirical knowledge suggests that those facilities and programs tend to be not used by those who are really expected to do so. The reform policies of category (6) and (7) belong to the remedial/therapeutic approach and the disciplinary approach respectively. To provide good counseling services both inside and outside the school is necessary and desirable. But it is not reasonable to expect psychological counselors to do much, because they usually focus on psychological problems and because their treatment is limited to a relatively small number of students. It should be also taken into consideration that there is the considerable risk of undermining the foundation of the morale of many teachers if psychological counselors are valued and rewarded higher than regular teachers. Finally, the revision of the Juvenile Law has been discussed as a problem involving at least the following three issues: The first relates to the effectiveness of stricter punishment as a means of correcting criminals as well as preventing crimes. The second concerns the rele-

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vance and fairness of the penalty, which may influence people’s sense of justice and the legitimacy of the legal system. The third refers to the transparency and fairness of criminal investigations and court proceedings. It can be said that recent reform initiatives in this respect, are symbolic phenomena of the populist reform-supremacy and the sensational reaction to recent juvenile crimes including the “Sakakibara” incident mentioned earlier. Many researchers in this field have questioned the effectiveness of stricter punishments and penalties for correcting criminal behavior and for preventing crimes. If there were a need to revise the Juvenile Law, it should have been targeted at the third issue in order to make criminal investigations and court proceedings more transparent.

6. Implication: Juvenile Problems and Schooling in Post-modern Societies To sum up, it can be said that current educational reforms in Japan have been reformulating the roles of and the balance among the four approaches mentioned earlier. That is, the educational approach has been de-emphasized and the environmental approach has been emphasized but has not improved much. On the other hand, the disciplinary and remedial/therapeutic approaches have become emphasized and expanded. There are several causes and results behind these developments. First, the retreat of the educational approach has been promoted by biased and irrational ideas and arguments that reflect the lost confidence and weakened trust in schooling. But it should be taken into account that there is a high risk that this development will lead to the further decline of both caring and socialization functions of schools. Second, the disciplinary approach has been emphasized and expanded as a response to recent serious juvenile crimes and school disorder problems on the surface, and at a deeper level, as an expression of people’s sense of justice. But it should be taken into consideration that this change would be followed by the change concerning who should bear responsibility. Third, the remedial/therapeutic approach has been emphasized and expanded, reflecting an increase in reported cases involving mental problems and also reflecting the rise of the so-called “therapeutic state” (Lasch 1979). It tends to emphasize psychotherapeutic treat-

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ment and mental health care programs as if they were almighty. But while these treatment programs can supplement educational programs, they cannot replace them. Fourth, the importance of the socio-cultural environment surrounding children and schools has been repeatedly emphasized, but no really effective measures have been designed and implemented. This situation will remain unchanged, given the supremacy of the free society and the general trend toward expanding the mass media. Of course, there are some voices and movements that propose and support stricter regulations such as an introduction of the V-chip, and in several countries this measure has been adopted. But its effectiveness is still questionable. It is not the intention of the author to say that introducing the V-chip will violate human rights. It is not so much a problem of freedom of expression as one of the intelligence of our society. The situation concerning juvenile problems might differ from country to country. It can be said that in Japan the discourse and policies of educational reform tend to be centered on schooling and school-related problems and that juvenile problems themselves are less serious in Japan than in Germany and other Western countries (see Foljanty-Jost, Metzler in this volume). These differences are partially rooted in the differences in political, economic, social and cultural conditions among these countries. In Germany, for example, since the integration of East and West Germany in 1989, various social conflicts and contradictions associated with it seem to have become pronounced, while Japanese society has enjoyed a relatively stable situation characterized by uniformity, conformity and economic equity. There might also be some differences in historical and cultural heritage concerning violence and delinquency. It would be misleading, however, if we attribute the differences in juvenile problems among these countries solely to their conditional differences built in their political and socio-economic structures. More important seems to be their educational and socio-cultural orientation as well as the institutional arrangements of education and the caring community. If Japanese government devalues the role of school education as a public and cooperative endeavor and move toward individualizing and privatizing the responsibility of educating children, then the foundation both of a healthy and secure society will be undermined along with the sound development of children and their ability to enjoy life as a whole. In this respect, it seems that Japan is now moving away

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from a society, which trusted and valued the educational approach. In this sense, we are now at a critical crossroad. Which way we are going is the question that we should ask seriously: Do we continue to value and try to improve the educational approach as a critical public enterprise, or do we give up our social responsibility, promote neo-liberal education reforms characterized by the individualization and marketization of schooling and rely on the disciplinary and remedial/therapeutic approaches more extensively, holding the individuals concerned (delinquents, offenders, victims and other alienated persons) responsible for their delinquency, alienation and victimization?

7. References Archer, Margret S. (1982): Introduction: Theorizing about the Expansion of Educational Systems. In: Archer, Margret (ed.), The Sociology of Educational Expansion. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications, pp. 3–64. Bowles, Samuel/Gintis, Herbert (1976): Schooling in Capitalist America: Educational Reform and the Contradictions of Economic Life. N.Y.: Basic Books. Craig, J. E./Spear, N. (1982): Explaining Educational Expansion: An Agenda for Historical and Comparative Research. In: Archer, Margret (ed.), The Sociology of Educational Expansion. Thousand Oaks, Cal.: Sage Publications, pp. 133–157. Clark, Burton R. (1962): Educating the Expert Society. San Francisco: Chandler. Collins, Randall (1971): Functional and Conflict Theories of Educational Stratification. American Sociological Review, Vol. 36 (December), pp. 1002–1019. Durkheim, Emile (1922): Education et sociologie. Paris: Librairie Felix Alcan. —— (1925): L’education morale. Paris: Librairie Felix Alcan. Fujita, Hidenori (1991a): Gakkôka, jôhôka to ningen keisei kûkan no hen’yo (The Irony and Contradictions of the Highly Schooled and High Information Society as an Educational Environment). Gendai shakaigaku kenkyû, Vol. 4, pp.1–33. Fujita, Hidenori (1991b): Kodomo, gakkô, shakai: Yutakasa no aironi no naka de (Child, School and Society: In the Irony of an Affluent Society), Tôkyô: Tôkyô Daigaku Shuppankai. —— (1993a): Gakkô gakushu no igi to kôzo (The Objectives and Structure of School Learning). Gakkô kyôiku kenkyû, No. 8, pp. 5–16. —— (1993b): Kyôiku no kôkyôsei to kyôdôsei (The Public and Common Nature of Education). In: Morita, Yôji et al. (eds.), Kyôikugaku nenpô 2, Gakkô: kihan to bunka (Annual Review of Education, Vol. 2, The School: Norms and Culture), Tôkyô: Seori Shobô, pp. 3–33. —— (1995): Kôsei: sono shakaiteki bunkateki kiban (Individuality: Its Socio-Cultural Foundations). In: Morita, Yôji et al. (eds), Kyôikugaku nenpô 4, Kôsei toiu gensô (Annual Review of Education, Vol. 4, Illusion of Individuality), Tôkyô: Seori Shobô, pp. 85–119.

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—— (1996): Kyôiku no shijôsei, hishijôsei (Marketability and Non-Marketability of Education). In: Morita, Yoji et al. (eds.), Kyôikugaku nenpô 5, Kyôiku to shijô (Annual Review of Education, Vol. 5, Education and Market), Tôkyô: Seori Shobô, pp. 55–124. —— (1997a): Kyôiku kaikaku (Education Reform). Tôkyô: Iwanami Shoten. —— (1997b): Kyôiku ni okeru shijô shugi hihan (A Critique of Market Ideology in Education). In: Fujita, Hidenori et al. (eds.), Kyôikugaku nenpô 6, Kyôikushi-zô no saikôchiku (Annual Review of Education, Vol. 6, Reconstruction of the Vision of Educational History), Tôkyô: Seori Shobô, pp. 409–455. —— (1998a): Hendô shakai ni okeru seishonen no seikatsu to ishiki (Life, Values and Concerns of the Youth in a Changing Society). In: Sômuchô Seishônen Taisaku Honbu: Dai 6 kai sekai seinen ishiki chôsa sai-bunseki hôkokusho (An Analytical Report of the 6th World Youth Survey). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku, pp.11–40. —— (1998b): Kyôiku shakaigaku kara mita konnichi no seishônen mondai (Today’s Problems of Juvenile Delinquency from the Perspective of Sociology of Education). Hanzai to hikô, No. 117, pp. 4–26. —— (1999a): Shiminteki kyôsei to kyôiku kaikaku no kadai (Civic Symbiosis and Tasks of Education Reform). In: Fujita Hidenori et al. (eds.), Kyôikugaku nenpô 7, Jendâ to kyôiku (Annual Review of Education, Vol. 7, Gender and Education). Tôkyô: Seori Shobô, pp. 375–394. —— (1999b): Choice, Quality and Democracy in Education: A Comparison of Current Educational Reforms in the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan. In: Abe, Hitoshi/Sato, Hiroko/Otsuru, Chieko K. (eds.), The Public and the Private in the United States ( JCAS Symposium Series 12). The Japan Center for Area Studies (JCAS), National Museum of Ethnology, Japan, pp. 247–272. —— (2000a): Education Reform and Education Politics in Japan. American Sociologist, Fall 2000: 42–57. —— (2000b): Shimin shakai to kyôiku (Civic Society and Education). Tôkyô: Seori Shobô. —— (2001a): Shin-jidai no kyôiku o dô kôsô suru ka (How to Design School Education in a New Era), Tôkyô: Iwanami Shoten. —— (2001b): Sengo Nihon ni okeru seishônen mondai, kyôiku mondai (Juvenile and Educational Problems in Post-War Japan). In: Fujita, Hidenori et al. (eds.), Kyôikugaku nenpô 8, Kodomo mondai (Annual Review of Education, Vol. 8, Issues on Children), Tôkyô: Seori Shobô, pp. 73–114. ——/Wong, Suk-Ying (1999): Post-modern Restructuring of the Knowledge Base in Japanese Mass Education: Crisis of Public Culture and Identity Formation. Education Journal, Vol. 26, No. 2 (Winter 1998) / Vol.27, No. 1 (Summer 1999), The Chinese University of Hong Kong, pp. 37–53. Hirota, Teruyuki (2001): ‘Seishônen no kyôaku-ka gensetsu no sai-kentô (Reexamination of the Discourse on ‘Adolescents Becoming more Evil’). In: Fujita, Hidenori et al. (eds.), Kyôikugaku nenpô 8, Kodomo mondai (Annual Review on Education Vol 8, Issues on Children). Tôkyô: Seori Shobô, pp. 115–150. Hômushô (1999): Hanzai Hakusho 1998 (White Paper on Crime: 1998). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô insatsukyoku. Karabel, Jerome/Halsey, A. H. (1977): Educational Research: A Review and an Interpretation. In: Karabel, Jerome and Halsey, A.H. (eds.), Power and Ideology in Education. New York et al.: Oxford University Press, pp. 1–85.

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Kiyonaga, Kenji (ed.) (2000): Sekai no Ijime (Bullying in the World). Tôkyô: Shinzansha. Lasch, Christopher (1979): The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. Lawrence, Richard (1998): School Crime and Juvenile Justice. New York et al.: Oxford University Press. Meyer, John (1977): The Effects of Education as an Institution: American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 83, No. 1, pp. 55–77. ——/Ramirez, F. O./Rubinson, R./Boli-Bennett, J. (1977): The World Educational Revolution, 1950–70. Sociology of Education, Vol. 50 (October), pp. 242–258. ——/Rowan, Brian (1977). Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structure as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, Vol. 83, No. 2, pp. 340–363. Morita, Yôji (ed.) (1998): Sekai no Ijime (Bullying in the World) Kaneko Shobô. Schultz, Theodore W. (1961): Investment in Human Capital. American Economic Review, Vol. 51 (March), pp. 1–17.

THE DEBATE ABOUT THE REFORM OF THE JUVENILE LAW IN JAPAN Christian Schwarzenegger

1. The Basic Characteristics of the Japanese Juvenile Law Before the Reform Before depicting the debate about the reform of the Juvenile Law and its outcome, a short description of the basic characteristics of the Japanese juvenile justice system is appropriate (for general introductions see Kühne/Miyazawa 1975; Kurata/Hamai 1996; Salzberg 2001; Sawanobori 2001). According to that law, juveniles (shônen) are defined as persons under twenty years of age (Art. 2 Shônenhô, Juvenile Law, for the English translation see Nakane 1968).1 Compared to adult offenders, juvenile suspects are subject to a different set of procedural rules and sanctions. This system was laid down after the Second World War during the general law reform initiated by the U.S. occupational administration. Consequently, the new Juvenile Law was drafted along the model of the “Standard Juvenile Court Act” from the U.S. On the one hand, it introduced a specialized Family Court, which was intended to operate without interference and participation of public prosecutors that have a dominant role in ordinary criminal procedures. On the other hand, the Juvenile Law was deeply rooted in the rehabilitative philosophy of the time (Art. 1 Juvenile Law). As one can see from Figures 1 and 2, the Family Court is like a clearing center for all cases involving juvenile offenders. If the police, public prosecutor or any other institution gets to know of a juvenile between 14 and 20 year of age who has presumably committed an offence, they have to send the case to the Family Court (see Murai 1988). 1

A different translation (including all amendments up to 1997) is available at: www.asem.org/Documents/Japan/Juvenile.htm (last visit: May 23, 2001).

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Figure 1: The Juvenile Justice System of Japan

Any Juvenile

Prefectural Governor

Police

Child Guidance Centre

Public Prosecutor Waiver

Family Court

Criminal Court

Pre-sentence Investigator

Trial

Supervision Tentative Probation

Sentence

Juvenile Detention & Classification Home

Judge Aquittal

Prison Sentence

Juvenile Prison

Fine

Suspended Sentence with/without probation

Hearing

Sentence

Juvenile Correction Centre

Dismissal without hearing Non-disposition after hearing

Reformatory home

Parole

Probation office

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Figure 2: The Appeal System in Juvenile Justice Cases

Supreme Court (1 court)

Appeal (Revision)

Further Complaint in juvenile law procedure

in criminal procedure

Appeal

in 2 weeks

High Court

Complaint

(8 courts) in 2 weeks

Appeal

Summary Court

District Court

Family Court

(438 courts)

(50 courts)

(50 courts)

Indictment

Public Prosecutor

Waiver Art. 20 Para. 1 Juvenile Law

All cases concerning persons under 20 years of age

Source: Lenz/Schwarzenegger 2000: 171

For juveniles under 14 years of age, the Family Court can also determine protective measures if only a prefectural governor or the chief of a child guidance center refers them to the court (see Art. 3 Para. 2 Juvenile Law). Additionally, the Family Court even deals with predelinquent juveniles, that is, juveniles who are prone to commit an offence, for example, because they “associate with a person of criminal propensity or of immoral character or frequent places of evil reputation” (see Art. 3 Para. 1 Item Juvenile Law; for the empirical significance see Metzler 1999: 33). Due to the rehabilitative philosophy of the Japanese Juvenile Law, the Family Court, by means of a ruling, can take only one of three protective measures with respect to a case (Art. 24 Juvenile Law, see Table 1).

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Table 1: The Protective Measures of the Juvenile Law Juvenile correction center Orientation about 1 month

- physical check-up - orientation - various investigations

Education 8 months to 1 1/2 years

- guidance counseling - vocational training - academic education - physical education - special activity

Preparation for discharge 1 month

- career counseling - extramural activity

ca. 5,000 measures/year

Reformatory home - guidance counseling - academic education - vocational training

Probation Most often used protective measure

ca. 270 measures/ ca. 52,000 year measures/ year

Source: For the data see Table 2.

These are: 1. To place the juvenile under the probationary supervision of the probation office (hogo kansatsu, see Hamai/Villé 1995:89); 2. To commit the juvenile to a reformatory home, also known as child education and training home/home for dependent children (jidô jiritsu shien shisetsu; jidô yôgo shisetsu [literal translations: Child self-support or child protection institution]) 3. To commit the juvenile to a juvenile correction center, also known as juvenile training school (shônen’in). Protective measures are all aimed at correction and education. Though life in juvenile correction centers is rigidly regulated, punishing the young offenders is not the aim in these institutions.

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Serious juvenile offenders are normally sent to a juvenile correction center of which four types exist (Art. 2 Shônen’inhô, Juvenile Correction Center Law, for an English translation see Eibun-Hôreisha 1990; for its implementation see Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho 1998: 243): 1. primary correction center (14- to 16-year-olds); 2. middle correction center (16- to 19-year-olds); 3. advanced correction center (16- to 23-year-olds with advanced delinquent careers); 4. medical correction center (up to 26 years with serious mental or physical problems). The length of stay in the correctional center is no longer determined. In July 1997, the Justice Ministry passed a notice, which removed the three-year time limit at correctional centers. According to the Juvenile Correction Center Law (Art. 11), the inmate normally has to be released upon coming of age (that is 20 years old). In special cases the measure can be extended for 3 years, and for 6 years in case of mental illness. Between 1995 and 2000 the annual number of newly committed inmates has increased by 58% (up from 3,828 to 6,052 persons). This is mainly due to an increase in male inmates (up from 3,719 to 5,448). In the year 2000 the crimes most frequently leading to detention in a juvenile correction center were (Hômushô 2001): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Theft (29.8%) Assault (14.6%) Threatening behavior (10.9%) Robbery (9.8%) Traffic offences (9.5%)

Besides, the Family Court can, again by means of a ruling, dismiss the case without imposing a protective measure. This can be done without holding a hearing or after completion of a formal hearing (Art. 23 Para. 2 Juvenile Law). In other cases the Family Court may come to the conclusion that only measures under the Child Welfare Law are necessary and refer them to the competent prefectural governor or head of the child guidance center (Art. 18 Juvenile Law). Similar to many state level Juvenile Justice statutes in the United States, the Japanese Juvenile Law opens the way to the ordinary criminal procedure, the so-called waiver to the Public Prosecutor’s Office (Art. 20 Juvenile Law). If an offence is punishable by the death penalty or imprisonment with or without forced labour, the judge at

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the Family Court can send the case to the public prosecutor if he finds that the nature and circumstances of the offence require a criminal sanction. The matter will then be tried at the Summary or District Court as a Juvenile Criminal Case according to the procedure concerning ordinary criminal cases with some exceptions as laid down in the Juvenile Law (Art. 45–60 Juvenile Law). Criminal punishments like the death penalty, life imprisonment or indeterminate sentences are mitigated to imprisonment with lower minimum and maximum limits (Art. 51–52 Juvenile Law). However, until a little while ago, this waiver was only admitted for juveniles age 16 years and over. As will be shown below, a hotly debated change has been introduced with last year’s revision of the Juvenile Law. Table 2 shows how many out of the total number of juvenile cases adjudicated by the Family Court in 1996 were dismissed without proceeding to a hearing. Roughly 40% of all cases are settled in this way (including cases for want of evidence). Often in such cases an informal conflict settlement has been reached, mediated by the pre-sentence investigator or the Family Court itself. It is a general characteristic of the Japanese justice system. Settlement dispositions can range from a simple warning to voluntary victim compensation or victim-offender reconciliation. In another 25% of juvenile cases the court finds it unnecessary after the hearing to order a protective measure to a juvenile. One can see that non-intervention or diversion is used in two-thirds of all juvenile cases. Only 5.5% of the cases are sent to the public prosecutor for adjudication in the ordinary criminal procedure. This percentage was still 17.1% in 1967 and has steadily decreased in the last 30 years. The complaint to the High Court is limited to cases in which a protective measure has been decided. It is remarkable that only the juvenile, his legal representative, or his attendant may appeal the ruling of the Family Court (Art. 32 Juvenile Law). The public prosecutor, hence, cannot question the ruling of the Family Court judge. The same applies to the second complaint to the Supreme Court (the reform has introduced some changes, see below). They are seldomly lodged.

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Table 2: Adjudication of Juvenile Cases at the Family Court, Complaints to the High Courts and Further Complaints to the Supreme Court (1996) Family Court, all juvenile cases* Waiver to the public prosecutor’s office for adjudication in ordinary criminal procedure = serious offences (Art. 20 Juvenile Law) and offenders 20 years of age and over (Art. 19 Para. 2 Juvenile Law) Protective measures, all cases = Probation, committal to a reformatory home, committal to a juvenile correction center (Art. 24 Juvenile Law) Case referred to the prefectural governor or the child guidance center (Art. 18 Juvenile Law) Dismissal after hearing (without imposing measures) Dismissal before hearing (without imposing measures) Other settlement High Court, complaint Only against the imposition of a protective measure, only by juvenile or his legal representative or attendant (Art. 32 Juvenile Law) Supreme Court , further complaint Only against the imposition of a protective measure, only by juvenile or his legal representative or attendant (Art. 35 Juvenile Law)

295,296 16,343

56,092

155 74,617 117,085 31,004 452

n.a.

Note: *Including traffic offences resulting in bodily harm and homicide by negligence and status offences. Source: Saikô Saibansho Jimusôkyoku 1997, Table 8 and 21.

This very limited appeal system2 is in line with the rehabilitative aim of the Juvenile Law. It is supposed to promote a speedy conclusion to the proceedings and an immediate implementation of the measures decided or informal settlements agreed upon. Due process guarantees 2

Family Court rulings are not equivalent to a Criminal Court sentence. Therefore, only complaints and no appeals are possible against Family Court rulings (see Kühne/Miyazawa 1975:11).

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or the participation of public prosecutors and victims were thought to be obstacles in this rehabilitative system. For this reason the Family Court deals with the cases in complete secrecy. The victim and the victim’s family may not inspect nor copy court records and is not notified of court hearings and rulings. This aspect of the Juvenile Law has drawn broad criticism and was regarded by many commentators as in need of reform. Additionally, to protect the juvenile from negative stigmatizing effects, the mass media may not publish any information from which the identity of the offender might be deduced (Art. 61 Juvenile Law). In sum, the Juvenile Law as enacted in 1948 can be characterized as a law emphasizing the protection and education of children and young persons under 20 years of age. Except for the waiver option leading to criminal prosecution in the ordinary criminal court, it contains no retributive elements. Public prosecutors are not involved in the investigation and decision-making process. The central aims of the Juvenile Law are reintegration through individual intervention and, if necessary, treatment in a correction centers. It should not be denied that this “State as Parent” model as practiced in Japan has some negative consequences as well: The due process guarantees are not up to the international standard as laid down in the UN Child Convention. Though the presumption of innocence is upheld in theory, in practice, if a case proceeds to the Family Court, the culpability is normally taken for granted. Victims are denied basic procedural rights, and if the Family Court judge makes a decision based on wrong appreciation of evidence, no one except the offender can file a complaint with the High Court. “The Committee recommends that the State party envisage undertaking a review of the system of juvenile justice in light of the principles and provisions of the Convention and of other United Nations standards in this field such as the Beijing Rules, the Riyadh Guidelines and the United Nations Rules for the Protection of Juveniles Deprived of their Liberty. Particular attention should be paid to the establishment of alternatives for detention, the monitoring and complaints procedures and the conditions in substitute prisons.” (United Nations, Committee on the Rights of the Child 1998, Note 48; for the official report see Government of Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan 1996, Notes 256 et seq.)

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2. What Led to the Urge for Reform? The urge for reform, which led to last year’s amendment of the Juvenile Law, was not the first one. Since 1951, the Justice Ministry has actively been involved in the reform movement because it has held the Family Courts’ lenient attitudes to be responsible for the increase in juvenile delinquency. Ever since, the discussion has oscillated between the poles of repression and youth welfare. Ever since, the Justice Ministry and Public Prosecutor’s Office has been in conflict with academics and the Supreme Court over the right strategy for the Juvenile Justice System. One of the central issues in this dispute, has been the attempt to re-establish a role for Public Prosecutor in juvenile legal proceedings (Kühne/Miyazawa 1975; Murai 1988). A full-fledged reform proposal published by the Ministry of Justice in May 1966 contained four major changes: 1. The upper age limit for juveniles should be lowered to 18 years, and a new category of young adults aged 18 to 23 years should be introduced. 2. Juvenile cases should still be referred to the Family Court; cases with young adults, instead, should be referred to the Public Prosecutor who in turn would decide on whether the case should be sent to the criminal court or the Family Court. 3. At Family Court proceedings a Public Prosecutor would take part with the right to appeal to the High Court. 4. Additional protective measures should be added to the Juvenile Law (Art. 24 Juvenile Law). The proposal was never realized, first of all because it found no support among the practitioners and even the police. With the public prosecutor as the dominant player in the pre-trial period, the balance would have inclined too much towards the system of adult crime control. Another proposal put forward in June 1970 attempted a similar switch to a juvenile procedure dominated by the public prosecutor, but failed to get enough support. After so many failures, what led to the successful amendment of the Juvenile Law at the end of the year 2000? It was a multitude of factors that can be categorized as follows:

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A series of heinous crimes committed by young offenders Mass media influence: Overemphasis on violent juvenile offenders A victim’s rights movement Claims for a formalized juvenile procedure including due process guarantees

2.1 Serious Crimes Committed by Very Young Offenders A series of serious crimes committed by offenders under 16 years of age has elicited fear of crime and punitive attitudes in the public (major juvenile crimes are summarized by Otake 1997). Correspondingly, the juvenile justice system has been more and more assessed as outdated and ineffective. A recent report published by the National Police Agency lists 22 cases of serious criminal cases committed by young offenders between January 1998 and May 2000 (Keisatsuchô 2000). The report is limited to homicide (16 cases), robbery resulting in homicide (1 case), assault (2 cases), and hostage taking (3 cases). Of these 22 cases, 12 were committed by offenders under 16 years of age, that is, by juveniles who cannot be prosecuted in criminal courts. The report, which by no means is a representative sample of violent juvenile offenders, remains inconclusive as to the causes of those crimes. However, it points out that school problems were noticed in 60% of all cases (Keisatsuchô 2000, Table 2–4, 12). Among the violent crimes that have stirred up huge media attention in Japan in recent years, two examples are noteworthy: 1. In 1993, a 13-year-old was killed by schoolmates in Shinjo, Yamagata prefecture. Several days after the boy’s body was found in the junior high school gymnasium, seven schoolmates were arrested or taken into preventive custody on suspicion of having committed the crime. Of the seven, six were put on trial at the Family Court. Three of them were committed to reformatories, and three were found innocent by the family judge (the other one was taken into protective custody in accordance with the Child Welfare Law). Those who were found guilty filed a complaint with the High Court, and later a further complaint with the Supreme Court. In both instances the complaints were dismissed, but the High Court acknowledged in its decision that the three, who were found innocent by the Family Court should also have been charged in the case, thus, undermining the credibility of the Family Court ruling.

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Obviously, the judge of the Family Court, investigating on his own, was unable to establish the facts behind conflicting statements and alibis. Because neither the victim’s family nor public prosecutor is entitled to file a complaint with the High Court, the acquittal of the three suspects was final. Even worse, unable to participate or obtain any direct information during the Family Court proceedings, the father of the victim, lodged a civil suit against the seven and the municipal government to clarify whom was responsible. This case made clear that if the investigation is undertaken solely by the Family Court, the risk of incorrect rulings is high, especially if the suspects are not co-operative or giving contradictious testimony. It is also a bad example of how badly neglected the interests of the victims and the next-of-kin are in a juvenile legal proceeding (see Otake 1997; Kajimoto 2000). 2. The neglect of next-of-kin was also obvious in the 1997 Kobe case in which a 14-year-old boy killed two elementary school pupils, beheading one of them. The head of the victim was found at a gate of Tomogaoka Junior High School (Kobe) (for details see Fujita in this volume). The parents of the victim never got any information from the juvenile court, not even in the civil trial for compensation they won in early 1999 (see Japan Times, Kobe child-killer, parents ordered to pay ¥100 million, 12 March 1999). The Kobe family court sent the boy to a medical correction center where he can be detained until he is 26 years old. A popular belief among the public and politicians holds that the Juvenile Law has to be strengthened in face of the worsening trend in youth crime. In this view up to now the crime control approach to juvenile delinquency, especially general deterrence, has been completely neglected by legislation. In the age range between 14 and 16 years, no criminal punishment was possible, though societal maturity has changed since the end of World War II (Otake 1997a). 2.2 Mass Media Influence Mass media influence has become a dominant feature in the discussion on juvenile delinquency and the proper reaction to it. From other countries like the U.S. or Germany, it is known how important the published opinion is for the formation of public opinion (Schwarzenegger 1992: 317; Roberts/Stalans 1997: 265). Thus, for the understanding of the latter, it is crucial to know how the Japanese

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mass media report on crimes committed by juveniles. Research indicates that the picture given of young offenders is distorted. The reduction of complexity and the concentration on emotional aspects of the crimes make simple solutions look attractive (Hirota 2000; Tokuoka in this volume). In consequence, several opinion polls confirmed that a majority perceived an increase in the juvenile crime rate and a lack in deterrent efficiency of the Shônenhô. In a survey3 conducted by the Prime Minister’s Office in April 1998, 93% of minors and 94% of adults responded that in their view juvenile delinquency was on the rise. Asked what was the biggest social problem, 85% of minors and 82% of adults cited murders and wounding with knives (Japan Times, Juvenile delinquency up, 90% say in poll, June 8, 1998). Due to broad media coverage and sensational depictions of these events, public opinion started to favour repressive means of crime control (see Otake 1997a; Japan Times, 76% in Kobe want Juvenile Law revised: survey, June 30, 1998).4 Though the Juvenile Law was still faring well in everyday cases, a growing fear of crime made the people ask for more severe punishment of young offenders. But the experiences made with these headline cases pointed also to real weaknesses in the juvenile justice system as described in the following two sections. 2.3 Victims’ Rights The fact that the interests and rights of victims or the victim’s family are completely ignored within juvenile procedures led to the foundation of a group called “Group of persons affected by juvenile crime” (Shônen Hanzai Higai Tôjisha no Kai).5 This group started to combat the one-sided approach of the Juvenile Law and actively participated in the reform debate prior to the enactment of the new provisions. In 1998 it issued its first document containing five demands for reform: 3

Sample size: 3,000 minors between 13 and 19 years, 3000 adults over age 20. Response rate: 65% minors, 70% adults. 4 A survey carried out in summer 2000 among 400 third-year high school students across Japan shows that 23.8% of respondents believe young offenders aged 16 or older should be punished as severely as adults. The average age chosen for the starting year of adult criminal responsibility was 13.8 years. See Japan Times, Kids want young criminals treated strictly, January 28th 2001. 5 See their website at http://www4.justnet.ne.jp/~takatora/welcome.htm (last visit: August 16th 2001), including a report on the reform bill for the Juvenile Law, October 19th 2000 (Shônenhô kaiseian ni kansuru ikensho).

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The group requested that facts about cases learned during both investigations and juvenile inquiry proceedings in family courts be disclosed to the victims or their families. It also wanted victims or their families to be allowed to state their opinion during juvenile inquiries. Furthermore, the group urged that the law be reviewed so that prosecutors get to participate in the Family Court proceedings. It also wanted similar cases in which youths have committed violent crimes to be handled differently from those in which the crimes committed were minor offences, such as thefts. Finally, the group demanded that parents of minors committing crimes be obliged to take responsibility for their children’s wrongdoing. As will be seen later, almost all demands have been included in the revised Juvenile Law. Last year, the group published a report on the reform bill for the Juvenile Law (Shônenhô kaiseian ni kansuru ikensho) adding some demands that were ignored by the preparatory committee: 1. The upper age limit for applicability of the Juvenile Law is reduced from 20 to 18 years. 2. In cases concerning attacks on the life of a victim, a lawyer or counsel is to be appointed to the victim or victim’s family free of charge. 3. The responsibility of the guardian of second-time juvenile offenders is to be clarified. 4. Regarding offences committed while on probation, the responsibility of the probation office or probation officer is to be clarified. 5. The right to file a complaint as provided in the reform bill is to be given not only to the public prosecutor, but also to the victim or victim’s family. However, not only the victims and their families campaigned for a revision. A movement for the empowerment of victims in the administration of the criminal justice system, both among practitioners and legal scholars, has got stronger in the last decade. It brought forward calls for financial support, counseling or support services, and a victim-oriented criminal policy in general (Miyazawa et al. 1996; Nihon Higaisha Gakkai 2000). Therefore, the claims made by the victims’ group were largely found to be legitimate.

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2.4 Claims to Strengthen the Rights of the Accused Juveniles The Japan Federation of Bar Associations (JFBA) introduced a completely different perspective into the debate. Opposing any changes to the Juvenile Law in the first place, they changed strategy during the preparation work in the reform committee claiming that the rights for juvenile suspects must be strengthened before and during the juvenile proceedings. The JFBA still criticized the major part of the new provisions holding that it would undermine the existing rehabilitative approach to juvenile delinquency under the auspices of the Family Court. The focus would turn backward to the criminal act itself and to retribution. The JFBA pointed to the fact that the paternalistic approach to juvenile justice is still dominant in Japan was in disaccord with international standards like the U.N. Convention for the Rights of Children, of which Japan is a signatory state. It also pointed to the deficiency in implementing the basic principles of the Juvenile Law. In many cases the Law does not provide for an appeal even if the juvenile judge acts against the best interests of the young offender (see Izumida-Tyson 2000).

3. Is the Juvenile Crime Rate Really Up? The Empirical Evidence According to the annual police statistics, the number of juvenile offenders has been on the increase since World War II (see Figure 3 for the overall trend, for a self-report study among students see Schwarzenegger et al. 1995). The prevalence rate peaked in the early 1980s at over 17 offenders per 1000 persons of the same age group (10 to 20 years of age). Detailed analysis shows that the change over time is mainly due to variations in the category of larceny.

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Figure 3: Trends in the Number of Juvenile Penal Code Offenders Cleared by the Police, and the Rate per Population (1946–1999) Offender/1,000 Persons (between 10 and 20 years) 18

Total Number 350,000 Number

16

Rate per Population

300,000

14 12

250,000

10 8

200,000

6 4

150,000

2 100,000 1945

1955

1965

1975

1985

1995

0

Note: The number and the rate after the year 1970 exclude those of traffic professional negligence by juveniles unter 15 years of age. Source: Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho 1998: 472; data for 1998-99 have been retrieved from Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho 1999/2000: www.moj.go.jp/HOUSO/hakusho2.html (last visit August 15, 2001)

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Figure 4: Trends in the Number of Very Serious Crimes Committed by Juvenile Offenders Cleared by the Police, and the Rate per Population (1968–1998)

Offender/100,000 Persons (between 10 and 20 years)

Total Number 5,000

30

4,500 Number

25

Rate per Population

4,000

20 3,500 3,000

15

2,500 10 2,000 5 1,500 1,000 1965

1970

1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

0 2000

Note: The category of very serious crimes (“atrocious crimes”, kyôakuhan) consists of homicide, robbery, arson, and rape. Sources: Keisatsuchô 1973–1999, calculation by the author, data for 1986, 1973 and 1972 vary according to the edition of White Paper.

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Taking into account only the most serious or “atrocious” crimes (kyôakuhan), a completely different picture emerges (see Figure 4). The prevalence rate had been highest in the mid-1960s, declining sharply between 1970 and 1977, and once again during the 1980s. Earlier data from 1950 to 1968 reveal that the rate of “atrocious” crimes had been even higher during the 1950s (Shibuya 1997a: 3; Hata/Kuwahara 1999: 239). It has to be pointed out that the marked decrease happened under the rule of the same Juvenile Law that is stigmatized as too “soft” in the current debate. Since 1995 the prevalence rate has risen again, but the increase is not as dramatic as one might conclude from mass media reports (see also Government of Japan, Ministry of Justice 1998: 1; Metzler 1999 and 1999a for an international comparison). Research in the variations of the homicide rate over time according to age groups also clearly shows a sharp decline during the period of 1960 to 1980. From a criminological point of view, it would make much more sense to focus on explanations for the causes of this positive development than on the relatively minor upward-turn during the last few years (Hirota 2000; Kageyama 2000). A report issued by the Ministry of Justice in July 1997 shows that the recidivism rate among 14 and 15-year-olds found guilty of “atrocious” crimes and committed to a juvenile correctional center (since 1965) is only 2%. 42% of them committed less serious offences such as theft or assault after release (Shibuya 1997: 3). Compared to recidivism rates in other countries, these results show that the Japanese approach of rehabilitating juvenile offenders into society is working, and considering the low intensity of repression and scarce use of detention in the juvenile justice system it can be regarded as successful (see Metzler, A. in this volume).

4. Changes Adopted by the Diet After the problematic Yamagata-Case, the Supreme Court started meeting regularly (since November 1996) with officials of the Justice Ministry and the JFBA to discuss the need for a reform of the Juvenile Law, especially regarding the fact-finding process and the adoption of evidence. Because of the limited complaint system in the Juvenile Law the decisions made by the family judges are normally final verdicts (see Otake 1997; Hirose 1999). Another proposition advocated

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the participation of public prosecutors in juvenile proceedings in cases where the facts are contested (see Murai 1999; Taguchi 1999; Shônenhô Kenkyû Yûshi 1999). In July 1998 the Justice Ministry asked the Legislative Council, an advisory panel to the justice minister, to debate how the Juvenile Law could be improved. The Council’s Juvenile Law Committee started discussing the following four major points: 1. Whether to increase from one the number of family court judges handling juvenile crime cases. 2. Whether to let prosecutors participate in juvenile hearings. 3. Whether to extend the maximum detention period for youth suspects from the current 28 days. 4. Whether to give prosecutors the right to appeal family court decisions. The proposal to lower the minimum age at which criminal offenders can be punished according to the criminal law from 16 to 14 years was not on the agenda of the Juvenile Law Committee. Instead, a panel of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) introduced it to the Minister of Justice at the end of 1998. Based on the recommendations of the Legislative Council’s Juvenile Law Committee, the government on March 9, 1999 endorsed a bill to revise the Juvenile Law. Among other changes, the bill embodied the claim to admit prosecutors in juvenile procedures involving crimes for which adults would face the death penalty or life imprisonment, or prison sentences of more than three years, or in which the victim was killed. However, unlike the LDP’s proposal the government-proposed bill did not change the age limit in Art. 20 Para. 1 Juvenile Law. In the months that followed, the bill had been deferred due to what the ruling parties initially claimed was a lack of time to fully debate the legislation. Following a fatal bus hijacking in Saga Prefecture and the fatal stabbing of an elderly woman in Aichi Prefecture, both crimes committed by 17-year-old boys, the ruling coalition of the LDP, New Komeito and the New Conservative Party in May 2000 hastily arranged deliberations on a bill to revise the law in the Diet. Contrary to the standard legislative process, the bill was drafted by the coalition itself and formulated by the House of Representatives’ Legislative Bureau and not by the bureaucracy of the Justice Ministry (on standard legislative practices in Japan see Matsukawa 1998). The two major parties of the opposition camp sided with the ruling camp

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after the introduction of a supplementary provision stipulating that the new Juvenile Law is to be reviewed after five years. The bill was enacted by the Diet on November 28, 2000 and became effective as of April 1, 2001. The most important changes can be characterized as follows (see also Sawanobori 2001). 4.1 Extending the Waiver System One of the most important changes concerns the option of waiving a case to the public prosecutor’s office, and by consequence, starting a criminal proceeding at a competent District Court which can lead to criminal punishment provided by the Penal Law. Before the revision, this option was restricted to offenders of 16 years and older. After the cancellation of this restriction in Art. 20 Para. 1 Juvenile Law, the waiver had become possible with respect to all offenders between 14 and 20 years of age provided that the offence is punishable by the death penalty or by imprisonment with or without forced labour. This step marks the clearest deviation from the rehabilitative ideal of the 1948 Juvenile Law (strongly criticized by Dandô 1999 “shame of the century”; Odanaka 1999; Dandô 2000; Izumida-Tyson 2000). In addition, according to the new Para. 2 of Art. 20 Juvenile Law, the waiver has made a general rule for all juveniles aged 16 or older accused of intentional homicide, thereby subjecting them to indictment and criminal trial as adult suspects. The family court can make exceptions in cases where a protective measure is regarded as adequate. 4.2 Improvement of Family Court Hearings Important changes have been made to the way Family Court hearings are handled. The basic guiding principle according to which the hearing should take place in a harmonious and cordial atmosphere has been amended by a clause saying that it should stimulate, at the same time, the introspection of the juvenile who is delinquent (Art. 22 Para. 1 Juvenile Law). In order to prevent mistakes, from now on three Family Court judges will sit in the case (Art. 31–4 Para. 4 Court Law, see Miyazawa 1999). Finally, in cases where the offender by intentional criminal conduct has caused the death of a victim and in cases where a minimum penalty of 2 years or more of imprisonment is applicable, the Family Court, if it finds it necessary that a public prosecutor participates in the fact verification, may decide to admit the

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public prosecutor to the proceedings (Art. 22–2 Para. 1 Juvenile Law). If a public prosecutor is admitted, the Family Court is required to assign a state-appointed lawyer to act as attendant, if the juvenile does not yet have a lawyer (Art. 22–3 Para. 1 Juvenile Law, see also Taguchi 1999). 4.3 Improvement of the Victims’ Role in the Juvenile Procedure Victims and their next of kin are allowed to inspect and copy court records concerning the delinquent act (Art. 5–2 Para. 1 Juvenile Law). During the proceeding they may upon request convey statements to the Family Court judges (Art. 9–2 Juvenile Law). A system of notification of the victim and his/her next-of-kin by the family court is introduced. The notification covers all important decisions made during the proceeding (Art. 31–2 Para. 1 Juvenile Law). In May 2001, the mother of a homicide victim was for the first time allowed to speak during the court hearing at Ôtsu Family Court (see Japan Times, Shiga killer teen sent to reformatory, May 17, 2001). 4.4 Power to Appeal In cases where the public prosecutor is admitted to the proceedings, he may file a complaint with the High Court (kôkoku), if the Family Court ruling contains serious mistakes (Art. 32-4 Juvenile Law).

5. Conclusion At the last meeting of the German Criminal Lawyer’s Association in Passau, Prof. Michael Walter held a conference speech on “The crisis of youth and the answers of the penal law” (Walter 2001), in which he portrayed a very similar pattern in the debate about the future of the juvenile justice system. Like in Japan, in Germany and Switzerland a discrepancy exists between the “get tough” attitude among politicians and the general public, on the one hand, and the opinion of scientists and practitioners working with juvenile offenders on the other. This discrepancy is manifest in the debate about lowering the age limit for criminal liability in Germany from 14 to 12 years, for example, or about the abolition of a separate age group of young adults. Behind this policy of individual attribution of responsibility, which is intensified by emotional mass media reporting lies also a new tendency to

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cause a distraction from societal causes of deviancy and criminal behavior. It has to be stressed that the reform of the Japanese Juvenile Law is shortsighted on several accounts: 1. It is based on the simple assumption that severe sanctions will reduce the number of violent juvenile crimes, but criminological research indicates that “getting tough” does not solve the problem. There is no empirical evidence that either the severity or the probability of punishment has a deterrent effect. Therefore, the length of a prison sentence or type of sanction have little influence on the law-abiding behavior of juveniles (see Kaiser 1996: 258). The “get tough” policy is much more a reaction to the public’s fear of crime or perception of safety and the lawmakers’ nervousness in showing determination than an action to reduce the juvenile crime rate.6 The coalition parties have not given any sound explanation as to the efficacy of the lower age limit for waiving cases to the criminal courts. It has to be remembered that under the old Juvenile Law a remarkable diminution of violent juvenile crimes had been achieved between 1960 and 1980. 2. The moral commitment to the legal norms depends principally on informal reactions to deviant behavior. Especially in societies like Japan, in which behavior tends to be controlled by external more than internal factors (for an application of the “locus of control” model in a Japanese context see Tubbs 1994), a lack of parental and societal supervision and guidance negatively affects the conformity with legal norms. In the last 25 years a trend towards nuclear families has brought with it a new pattern of family dynamics characterized by a strong mother-child relationship and a weak presence of fathers. The post-baby-boomer generation has been brought up 6

At the time the Symposium took place in Halle (June 8, 2001), a mentally ill offender with a record of aggressive behaviour stormed into an elementary school in Ikeda, Osaka Prefecture, and fatally stabbed eight children and wounded 15 others. The public outcry and continuous mass media reporting led the conservative Prime Minister Koizumi to make the following declaration on the very next day: “We are beginning to see cases in which those (with mental illnesses) who are arrested return to society and commit crimes again … The safe society is crumbling and this is a significant incident.” (see Japan Times, Koizumi to Rethink Law for Mentally Ill, June 10,2001). On Monday (June 11, 2001) the LDP held its first meeting to discuss preventive measures for offenders with psychiatric illnesses [The Japanese Criminal Law does not know protective measures (Massregeln), which can be applied to cases of mentally ill offenders without criminal culpability].

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with a new set of values emphasizing competition, economic success and egoism (see Schwarzenegger 1997: 85; Kawanishi 2000). A good prevention policy would focus on supporting the various agents of norm conformity and social cohesion: family, schools, peer groups, and to some extent, the media. 3. The mass media operate by their own rules: “Newsworthiness” comes before social reality (Reiner 1997; Warr 2000; Schwind 2001: 260). The central criterion for choosing crime stories is the seriousness of the act, which leads to an over-representation of violent crimes. This is especially manifest in the case of homicide, which tops the list of crime news with 22% of all articles (two hundred times its share in crime statistics). The criteria for selection are mainly determined by the media consumers themselves, as there has always been a demand for sensation and emotional thrill (for empirical evidence and consequences in the context of criminal justice see Schwarzenegger 2000: 350). In recent years, however, the media coverage has gained a new dimension. Due to higher competition in the media, crime stories in tabloids and radio/TV programmes are shifting away from information and towards personal drama. The private TV channels in Japan regularly fill their variety programs with repetitious reports about shocking crimes, trying to give psychological portrayals of weird personalities (see also Hirota 2000). The call for a reform of the Juvenile Law was certainly amplified by this “media reality”. It will be one of the crucial questions in the criminal policy of the next decades, whether and how the distorting feedback loops between publicized opinion, public opinion and criminal legislation can or should be corrected. It should not be dismissed that the reform of the Japanese Juvenile Law comprises some positive aspects as well: It gives participation rights to the victims and their families in juvenile procedures. Even the fiercest critics (like Dandô 1999; 2000) have welcomed this amendment. Additionally, the shift to a more formal procedure with better defence rights for juveniles and the improvements made to the fact-finding process in juvenile hearings bring the Japanese Juvenile Law more in line with international human rights standards. It remains doubtful, however, whether these positive elements will outweigh the expected negative consequences (especially of the waiver system for juveniles under 16 years of age).

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6. References Asahi Shinbun (2000): Genbatsu-ka ni kyûtenkan “Shônenhô”. Seitô no kakehiki ga kage. Seikyû-sa ni gimon no koe (The Urgent Conversion of the “Juvenile Law” to severe Punishment. The Shadows of Bargaining among Political Parties. Voices of Doubt against Impatience). Asahi Shinbun, September 9, 2000. Dandô, Shigemitsu (1999): Shônenhô kaisei hihan—kyôkô sureba seiki no chijoku (A critique of the Reform of the Juvenile Law—If it is Enforced it is the Disgrace of the Century). Hôritsu Jihô, 71, pp. 64–72. —— (2000): Shônenhô kaisei: Keijibatsu de kiri-suteru na—hikô no gen’in nozoku no ga saki (The Reform of the Juvenile Law: don’t cut it down with Criminal Punishment—Remove the Causes of Delinquency First!). Asahi Shinbun, September 18, 2000. Eibun-Hôreisha (ed.) (1990): Reformatory Law, Law No. 169, Jul. 15, 1948 (English translation of Shônen’inhô). EHS Law Bulletin Series, EHS Vol. II, No. 2735. Tôkyô: Eibun-Hôreisha. Government of Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan (ed.) (1996): The Initial Report of Japan under Article 44, Paragraph 1 of the Convention on the Rights of the Child (May 30, 1996). Tôkyô, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, published online at: www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/crc/crcs17.htm#18th (last visit: August 16, 2001) Government of Japan, Ministry of Justice, Research and Training Institute (ed.) (1998): Summary of the White Paper on Crime 1998. N.p. [Tôkyô:] Ministry of Justice. Hamai, Kôichi/Villé, Renaud (1995): Origins and purpose of probation. In: Kôichi Hamai et al. (eds.): Probation Round the World. A Comparative Study. London and New York: Routledge, pp. 71–110. Hata, Toshiyuki/Kuwahara, Shôsuke (1999): Shônen hikô 50-nen no hensen to saikin no shônen hikô no tokuchô (The Changes of Juvenile Delinquency within the last 50 Years and Characteristics of Recent Juvenile Delinquency). Hanrei Taimusu, No. 996, pp. 222–246. Hirose, Kenji (1999): Shônen shinpan he no saitei gôgisei no dônyû (Introduction of the Decision by Collegial System in Juvenile Procedures). Gendai Keijihô, No. 5/1999, pp. 37–46. Hirota, Teruyuki (2000): Media to “seishônen kyôaku-ka” gensô (Media and the Illusion of “Youth Brutalisation”). Asahi Shinbun, August 25, 2000. Hômu Sôgô Kenkyûsho (ed.) (1998): Hanzai hakusho heisei 10 nenpan (White Paper on Crime 1998). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô insatsukyoku. Hômushô (2001): Hakusho tôkei: Shônen’in (White Paper Statistics). Published online at: www.moj.go.jp/TOUKEI (last visit: August 16, 2001). Izumida-Tyson, Masami (2000): Revising Shonenho: A Call to a Reform That Makes the Already Effective Japanese Juvenile System Even More Effective, Vanderbilt Journal of Transnational Law, 33, pp. 741–775. Kageyama, Jinsuke (2000): Juvenile Crime and Its Psychology. Speech given on June 14, 2000, at the Foreign Press Center/Japan, published online at:www.fpcj.jp/e/ gyouji/br/2000/000614.html (last visit: August 16, 2000). Kaiser, Günther (1996): Kriminologie. Ein Lehrbuch (Criminology. A textbook). 3rd Ed. Heidelberg: Müller Verlag.

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Kajimoto, Tetsushi (2000): Tougher Juvenile Law Best Remedy? Move to Increase Youth Offenders’ Accountability both Criticized, Hailed, Japan Times, November 24, 2000. Kawanishi, Yuko (2000): Roots of Juvenile Crime Lie in Parenting, Japan Times, July 31, 2000. Keisatsuchô (ed.) (1973–1999), Keisatsu hakusho, Shôwa 48-Heisei 11-nenpan (White Paper on Police, 1973–1999). Published online at: www.npa.go.jp/ hakusyo/ (last visit August 15, 2001). Keisatsuchô, Seikatsu Anzenkyoku, Shônen-ka (ed.) (2000): Saikin no shônen ni yoru tokui kyôaku jiken zenchô-tô ni kansuru kinkyû chôsa hôkokusho (Report about the Urgent Examination of the Signs etc. related to Recent Cases of Peculiar and Atrocious Crimes Committed by Juveniles. N.p. [Tôkyô:] Keisatsuchô. Kühne, Hans-Heiner/Miyazawa, Kôichi (1975): Das japanische Jugendgesetz (Shônenhô) vom 15. Juli 1948 mit Nebengesetzen: eine kommentierte Übersetzung (The Japanese Juvenile Law of July 15, 1948 and its Supplementary Laws. A Commented Translation). Berlin: de Gruyter. Kurata, Seiji/Hamai, Kôichi (1996): Criminal Justice System at Work. Outline of Crime Trends, Criminal Procedure and Juvenile Justice System in Japan. Tôkyô: First Research Department, Research and Training Institute, Ministry of Justice. Lenz, Karl-Friedrich/Schwarzenegger, Christian (2000): Japan. In: Becker, Monika/ Kinzig, Jörg (eds.): Rechtsmittel im Strafrecht. Eine international vergleichende Untersuchung zur Rechtswirklichkeit und Effizienz von Rechtsmitteln. Band 1: Rechtsvergleichender Teil. Freiburg i.Br.: Edition iuscrim, pp. 151–201. Matsukawa, Minoru (1998): Die Gesetzgebung. Eine rechtsvergleichende Studie zum deutschen und japanischen Recht (Legislation. A Legal Comparative Study on German and Japanese Law). Regensburg: S. Roderer Verlag. Metzler, Anne (1999): Jugenddelinquenz und Jugenddevianz in Japan. Eine Datensammlung (Juvenile Delinquency and Deviancy in Japan. A Collection of Data). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan. Occasional Papers Bd. 5. HalleWittenberg: Seminar für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität. —— (1999a): Jugendkriminalität in Japan im internationalen Vergleich.(Japanese Juvenile Delinquency in International Comparison) Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan. Occasional Papers Bd. 8. Halle-Wittenberg: Seminar für Japanologie der Martin-Luther-Universität. Miyazawa, Kôichi (1999): Shônenhô ri’nen to genjitsu (Idea and Reality of the Juvenile Law). Gendai Keijihô, No. 5/1999, pp. 4–12. ——/Taguchi, Morikazu/Takahashi, Norio (eds.) (1996): Hanzai higaisha no kenkyû (Research on Crime Victims). Tôkyô: Seibundô. Murai, Toshikuni (1988): Current Problems of Juvenile Delinquency in Japan. Hitotsubashi Journal of Law & Politics, 16, pp. 1–10. —— (1999): Shônenhô no rinen to mondai-ten—kaisei rongi ni kanren shite (The Idea of the Juvenile Law and its Crucial Problems—About the Reform Debate). Hôritsu Jihô, 71, pp. 105–109. Nakane, Fukio (ed.) (1969): Juvenile Law, Law No. 168, July. 15, 1948 (English translation of Shônenhô). EHS Law Bulletin Series, EHS Vol. II, No. 2710. Tôkyô: Eibun-Hôreisha.

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Nihon Higaisha Gakkai (ed.) (2000): Jû-shû-nen kinen shinpojiumu (10 Year Memorial Symposium [with contributions by Kôichi Miyazawa et al.]). Higaishagaku Kenkyû, No. 10, pp. 20–101. Odanaka, Toshiki (1999): Shônenhô “kaisei”-an no mondai-ten—keisatsu, kensatsu ni yoru shônen shihai shisutemu kôchiku (The crucial problems of the “Reform” Bill for the Juvenile Law—The Construction of a System of Juvenile Control by the Police and Public Prosecutor). Hôgaku Seminaa, 44, pp. 70–76. Otake, Tomoko (1997): Officials Debate Court Process. Youths Presumed to be Guilty Before Proceedings Begin. Japan Times, September 3, 1997. Otake, Tomoko (1997a): Rehabilitation over Punishment. Japan Youth Law in Line with World. Japan Times, September 2, 1997. Reiner, Robert (1997): Media made Criminality: The Representation of Crime in the Mass Media. In: Mike Maguire et al. (eds.): The Oxford Handbook of Criminology. 2nd ed. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Roberts, Julian V./Stalans, Loretta J. (1997): Public Opinion, Crime, and Criminal Justice. Boulder, Westview Press. Saikô-saibansho Jimusôkyoku (ed.) (1997): Shihô tôkei nenpô, 4 shônen-hen (Annual Report of Justice Statistics. Vol. 4: Cases concerning juveniles). N.p. [Tôkyô:] Saikôsaibansho Jimusôkyoku. Salzberg, Stephan M. (2001): 100 Years of Juvenile Law in Japan. Paper presented at the Japanese Law Colloquium, April 4, 2001, University of Victoria. Sawanobori, Toshio (2001): Shônenhô nyûmon. Dai-2-han (Introduction to the Juvenile Law. 2nd Ed.). Tôkyô: Yûhikaku. Schwarzenegger, Christian (1992): Die Einstellungen der Bevölkerung zur Kriminalität und Verbrechenskontrolle (Attitudes towards Crime and Crime Control in the Population). Freiburg i.Br.: Eigenverlag Max-Planck-Institut. —— (1997): Gewalt in der Familie in Japan. Ein Überblick. (Violence in the Family in Japan. A survey). In: Margaret Gruter & Manfred Rehbinder (eds.): Gewalt in der Kleingruppe und das Recht. Festschrift für Martin Usteri. Bern: Stämpfli, pp. 75–101. —— (2000): Skrupellos und verwerflich! Über Emotionen und unbestimmte Rechtsbegriffe im Strafrecht (Unscrupulous and Reprehensible! On Emotions and Vague Legal Terms in Penal Law). Schweizerische Zeitschrift für Strafrecht, 118, pp. 349–377. ——/Niggli, Marcel A./Juchli, Kurt; Pfister, Fritz (1995): Self-reported Delinquency and Criminal Friends Among Students in Japan and Switzerland—Results of a Comparative Study. Hôsei Riron, 28, No. 2, pp. 165–188. Shibuya, Tomoko (1997): Centers Help to Curb Juvenile Delinquency. Japan Times, September 5, 1997. —— (1997a): Youth Crimes Put Japan under Microscope. Japan Times, September 4, 1997. Shônenhô Kenkyûsha Yûshi (1999): Shônenhô kaisei hôan ni tsuite no iken—ima dono yô na ten o kentô shinakereba naranai ka (Opinion on the Reform Bill for the Juvenile Law—What Kind of Points have to be Examined now?). Kikan Keiji Bengo, No. 19/1999, pp. 131–141. Taguchi, Morikazu (1999): Shônen shinpan no kensatsukan—tsukisoe-nin no kanyo (Participation of Public Prosecutors and Attendants in Juvenile Procedures). Gendai Keijihô, No. 5/1999, pp. 47–55.

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Tubbs, Walter (1994): The Roots of Stress-Death and Juvenile Delinquency in Japan: Disciplinary Ambivalence and Perceived Locus of Control. Journal of Business Ethics, 13, pp. 507–522. United Nations, Committee on the Rights of the Child (1998): Concluding Observations of the Committee on the Rights of the Child: Japan. Eighteenth Session, Distr. GENERAL, CRC/C/15/Add.90, June 5, 1998, published online at: www.unhchr.ch/html/menu2/6/crc/crcs17.htm#18th (last visit: August 16, 2001). Walter, Michael (2001): Jugend in der Krise und die Antwort des Strafrechts (Youth in Crisis and the Response of Penal Law). Zeitschrift für die Gesamte Strafrechtswissenschaft, 113, pp. 743–773. Warr, Mark (2000): Public Perceptions of and Reactions to Crime. In: Joseph F. Sheley (ed.): Criminology. A Contemporary Handbook. 3rd ed. B e l m o n t : Wadsworth.

COUNSELING SYSTEMS AS A MEANS OF PREVENTING DELINQUENCY Yoshiaki Nakano

1. Introduction In 2001 the Japanese government embarked upon a new project: financial aid to place counselors in schools. Local school boards of each of the 47 prefectures can ask the government for matching funds (half and half) to hire part-time school counselors in public elementary, junior high and senior high schools. Three thousand five hundred and thirteen public schools (1,520 elementary, 2,816 junior high and 177 senior high schools) can employ part-time school counselors who will work for those schools once or twice a week for eight to ten hours during the 2001 school year. It is estimated that 6,250 public schools can avail themselves school counselors in the 2002 school year. In Japan, there are about 24,000 elementary, 11,000 junior high and 5,480 senior high schools as of the year 2001, and the governmental aid goes mainly to junior high schools because they have much more serious adjustment problems among seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders. It is predicted that all public junior high schools will have parttime counselors by the 2005 school year. In order to establish the new counseling system in public school settings, school administrators and teaching staff must develop their own philosophies and strategies for effectively making use of part-time school counselors within schools.

Figure 1: School Violence Against Teachers, Students, Other People and Facilities, 1998–2000

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Figure 3: Absence from School For More Than 30 Days By School Type, 1991–2000 160000

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The pilot study of this project began in the 1995 school year. The impetus was the upsurge of school pathology, including the suicide case involving an eighth grade junior high student who was bullied in 1994, the rising number of children (over 100,000) who stopped going to school in 1997, the murder of an elementary school boy by a ninthgrade junior high school boy in 1997, the fatal stabbing with a knife of a female teacher by a seventh-grade junior high school boy in a school hallway in 1998, the rise in school violence to above 35,000 incidents in 1998, and in the late nineties, the so-called “collapse of the classroom”, which concerns the inability to control classroom children during instruction. The government decided to examine the effectiveness of using school counselors to cope with those problems by providing the difficult-to-manage schools with part time school counselors to help victims of bullies and violence as well as to counsel students who cannot and do not go to school, to punish perpetrators more strictly by means of forbidding them from going to school for a while, and to strengthen moral education for all children.

2. Problems Inherent in the New Counseling System The new counseling system has serious inherent problems. First, the decision to introduce part-time school counselors was not supported by the nation-wide survey of urgent needs of local public schools. In the nineties, we have had rapid educational reform, including (1) the introduction of a five-day school week, (2) the revision of the national curriculum to reduce the contents of major subjects as well as the introduction of the new subject of “comprehensive studies”, (3) the introduction of six-year secondary schools and (4) the policy of education by choice by relaxing the neighborhood-assigned school system (see Fujita in this volume). The reform will cause serious problems such as the lowering of academic achievement among children (Sato 2000), expanding the discrepancy between advantaged and disadvantaged children, strengthening a feeling of inequality among mediocre children by favoring excellent children, not being able to hire the number of proper teachers to care for the latter and giving them the privilege of skipping a grade and magnifying the difference of quality education among elite schools and average schools, public schools and private schools and so on. If the government would con-

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duct a public school needs survey, then respondents would recommend adopting policies other than introducing school counselors. Second, the qualification of the school counselor was arbitrarily limited to clinical psychologists, psychiatrists and professional psychologists working for colleges and universities, excluding other qualified professionals such as school psychologists, counseling psychologists, educational counselors, rehabilitation counselors, community psychologists, etc. The feasibility study of using counselors in the schools must conduct a comparative study of the effectiveness of different counselors mentioned above. Third, and this is most important, the new counseling system is based on the old counseling paradigms (Nakano/Kokubu 2000). It emphasizes effecting change in student behavior through the application of individual or small group counseling. But many of the problems presented by students in the schools are difficult to solve by treatments that only target the individual. The new paradigm is proactive, developmental, comprehensive and preventive. It emphasizes prevention by teaching life skills to all students and intervention in ecological settings, e.g. classrooms, the school as a whole, peer groups, families and communities. The core of the new paradigm is a planned educational program for all students that raise and explore personal-social dimensions of their current and future lives (Watkins 2001).

3. Program Model vs. Clinical Service Model There are two models of school counseling, the clinical service model and the program model (Gysbers, Henderson 2000). The clinical service model emphasizes the counselor position, therapy through a one-to-one relationship, is a reactive rather than proactive practice and is peripheral to teaching and instruction. The program model is an educational model opposed to a therapy model. It conceptualizes school counseling as a program, which is an integral part of the school and not a peripheral one. The program is developmental in that it facilitates the student’s academic, career and personal-social development. The program is comprehensive in that a full range of activities and services, such as assessment, information, consultation, counseling, referral, placement and follow-up, are pro-

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vided. It emphasizes a team approach and is proactive and preventive rather than reactive. After World War II, the Japanese government accepted the American guidance model to replace the moral training, which had been used to indoctrinate youngsters with militaristic discipline, and to cultivate democratic values. The new education system seito shidô (student guidance) was introduced in schools as a way of developing democratic character in children and it was an integral part of school education. In Japan we conceptualize the implementation of school education by two kinds of teacher behaviors: gakushû shidô (academic instruction) and seito shidô (school guidance). Seito shidô consists of the following teacher behaviors: having to do with the full development of personality, personal social development, development of healthy a lifestyle and skills and helping children solve personal and interpersonal problems. There was a chance to strengthen the program model of guidance and counseling in schools, but the Ministry of Education determined seito shidô to be a “function” that is not allowed to be in the content of the curriculum, and so it lost the idea of guidance through the curriculum. In April of 2001, the research study council on the student problem behaviors of Monbukagakushô (the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology) presented a document on how to cope with school pathology. It proposed four important goals to be met immediately: 1. 2. 3. 4.

to cope with “psychological” problems in children, to develop sociableness in children, to detect early signs of problem behaviors in society as a whole and to deal with special cases that need continuing care by professional mental health institutions.

The basic paradigm is still pathology-oriented and lacks the developmental perspective.

4. Stress Leads to Pathology? It is common to discuss school pathology with reference to “school stress.” It is true that stress is a risk factor and leads to school pathology, but it is a myth that it leads directly to school pathology. The

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relation is not linear. There are four protective factors that buffer the direct impact of stress (Dalton,/Elias/Wandersman 2001). The first protective factor consists of physical resources. If you have school buildings with free space for various activities equipped with air conditioners, a wide schoolyard and rooms for changing clothing, then they will buffer the daily hassles of stressors. The second factor concerns social relationships and support. If a school is a caring community and teachers and children help each other, then even an isolated student can bond with the school and feel comfortable with his/her teachers and peers. The third protective factor is the competence developed in children. It refers to certain social, emotional and cognitive skills, which are sometimes called life skills. Life skills are abilities for adaptive and positive behavior that enable us to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life (WHO 1994). They are self-awareness and empathy, interpersonal relationship skills and effective communication, critical thinking and creative thinking, problem solving and decision making, coping with emotions and coping with stress, coping with sexual development and life transition, and resistance to the influence of mass media. If a school succeeds in teaching these skills to all children using effective programs such as peer support, then children can cope with stress effectively (see Taki in this volume). The fourth factor involves spiritual and religious resources. Physical, social and competence resources cannot be used to cope with bereavement. Religion and spirituality offer personal and social resources at the moment of time when other protective factors lose their powers, but we don’t know whether we can regard spiritual-religious factors as protective factors in Japan because modern Japanese people have become very much reality-oriented and have lost sight of a sense of transcendence, or of going beyond oneself and daily life. Anyway, these four protective factors buffer the impact of a variety of stressors and help school environments become healthier. Counselors must be team leaders who strengthen those protective factors by teaching life skills to children and promote the healthy climate of schools. But people emphasize the therapeutic function of counselors in Japan and the educational function of counselors has not been fully examined. It is these kinds of counselors, responsible for teaching children, that are really needed in the present state of schooling in Japan.

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5. Preventing Behavioral Problems by Competence Enhancement In order to make a school counseling system as a means of preventing delinquency, we have to change the existing program into a new strategy that can make use of teachers as well as part-time school counselors. In Japanese schools, teachers have additional roles, i.e. divisions of duties, to implement schooling. The division of duties distributed among teaching staff includes curriculum & instruction, student guidance, career guidance, physical education, PTA section, homeroom teachers, etc. Teachers who have something to do with mental health problems in schools are at the head of student guidance, the head of career guidance, the head of health education, school nurses and teachers who perform counseling functions. A new preventive counseling system must have a new name rather than use traditional names like the division of student guidance and the division of school counseling. The “committee for promoting school mental health” may be an appropriate name to represent these new ideas. The mission of the mental health promotion committee is to make the school healthier by developing and implementing programs to facilitate personal and social skills and to prevent behavioral problems. The leader of this team must be a full-time school employee who can perform a proactive role by planning an annual schedule to promote mental health in a school. Members of the team must have weekly meetings to discuss the basic philosophy and strategy of the promotion of mental health, the division of duties, the management of the counseling room, the treatment of privacy and confidence, the development of the guidance curriculum, the counseling workshop for teachers, etc. The part-time school counselor has the role of a technical support member, providing information and techniques in the counseling area. It is very important to base the team activities on the program model of school counseling. The team strengthens the abovementioned resources or protective factors. The most important job is to promote competence enhancement through the guidance curriculum. Competence enhancement is the best way to prevent juvenile delinquency.

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6. Conclusion The counseling system in Japan is currently based on the clinical model. The professional school counselor works on a part-time basis and emphasizes one-to-one individual counseling. The school cannot hire full-time counselors because of financial problems, and some teachers have to function as teacher counselors. Teacher counselors do classroom teaching simultaneously and are very busy. The guidance and counseling program of the year is developed by the teacher counselor and not by the part-time school counselor. Only a pro-active program is preventive, whereas the therapy model and part-time counselor system are not preventive. We have not developed National Standards for School Counseling Programs consisting of a list of competencies. We have to change from the therapy model to the program model. The goal of the school counseling system is to teach personal/social skills to children, and it also has a superordinate goal of changing the school into “a caring community”. Eight proposals for making counseling systems an effective means of preventing delinquency are listed below: 1. Paradigm change: from clinical to education model. 2. Finance: full-time teacher counselor, more teachers with fewer children (20 children per class). 3. Mental health team: full-time leader of the team, incorporating the head of student guidance, the head of career guidance, the head of school health, a school nurse, teachers who perform a counseling role and a part-time school counselor. 4. Program development: counseling as a pro-active program. 5. Ecology: multiple setting interventions. 6. Cooperation: school, family and community. 7. Paraprofessionals: developing & involving para-professionals to facilitate prevention 8. More science: evidence-based intervention program.

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7. References Dalton, James H./Elias, Maurice J./Wandersman, Abraham (2001): Community Psychology: Linking Individuals and Communities. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth/ Thompson Learning. Gysbers, Norman C./Henderson, Patricia (2000): Developing and Managing your School Guidance Program (3rd ed.). Alexandria, VA: American School Counselor Association. Sômuchô Gyôsei Kansatsukyoku (1999): Ijime, futôkô mondai nado no genjô to kadai (Present State and Tasks concerning Bullying, Absence from School and Other Problems). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô insatsukyoku. Nakano, Yoshiaki/Kokubu, Yasutaka (2000): Kore nara dekiru kyôshi no sodateru kaunseringu (School Counseling: Effective Implementation). Tôkyô: Tôkyô Shoseki. Satô, Manabu (2000): Gakuryoku teika—Nihon no fukai kiki. Kodomotachi ha naze ‘manabi’ kara tôsô suru no ka (Why Children Flee from Studying—Cultural Crisis of Japanese Society Reflected in Academic Underachievement). Sekai, May, 2000, pp. 77–86. Watkins, C. (2001): Comprehensive Guidance Programs in an International Context. Professional School Counseling Vol. 4, No. 4, pp. 262–270. World Health Organization (1994): Life Skills Education in Schools. Geneva: World Health Organization.

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THE REVIVAL OF LOCAL NETWORKS FOR THE PREVENTION OF JUVENILE DELINQUENCY Masaya Minei

1. Introduction In order to prevent radical forms of juvenile delinquency, it is necessary to revive local communication networks that will not only create countermeasures to deal with juvenile behavioral problems but will also set up strategies for the development of all children and young people. These local networks that establish strategies for the development of all children and young people can be considered the means of reviving society’s competence in bringing up children (chiiki no kyôikuryoku). The attempt to foster children’s participation is most important to furthering this aim. This paper will introduce the “Community’s Conference for Education” (Chiiki Kyôiku Kaigi), an event held in Kawasaki City, as an example. An effort such as this corresponds to the following principles and measures of the UN Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (The Riyadh Guidelines): “The prevention of juvenile delinquency is an essential part of crime prevention in society. By engaging in lawful, socially useful activities and adopting a humanistic orientation towards society and an outlook on life, young persons can develop non-criminogenic attitudes. (...) The successful prevention of juvenile delinquency requires efforts on the part of the entire society to ensure the harmonious development of adolescents, with respect for and promotion of their personalities from early childhood. (...) For the purposes of the interpreting these guidelines, a child-centered orientation should be pursued. Young persons should have an active role and partnership within society and should not be considered as mere objects of socialization or control. (...) Education systems should seek to work together with parents, community organizations and agencies concerned with the activities of young persons. (...) Communities should provide, or strengthen where they exist, a wide range of community-based support measures for young persons,

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including community development centers, recreational facilities and services to respond to the special problems of children who are at social risk. In providing these helpful measures, respect for individual rights should be ensured.” (United Nations 1990)

2. Various Attempts at Reviving the Community’s Competence in Bringing up Children In Japan, each local community has recently begun to try to revive its competence in bringing up children. This trend has been encouraged by two reports of the Central Council of Education, which is an advisory committee to the Minister of Education, Culture and Science. One of them is the 1996 report entitled “First Report on the Model for Japanese Education from the Perspective of the Twenty-First Century” (Chûô Kyôiku Shingikai 1996), followed by the 1998 report entitled “How Local Administration on Education Should Be” (Chûô Kyôiku Shingikai 1998). The former report proposed organizations such as “Liaison Conferences for Education in the Community” (Chiiki Kyôiku Renraku Kaigi) or “Centers for Promoting Educational Activities in the Community” (Chiiki Kyôiku Kasseika Sentâ) and pointed out that while children learn systematically in schools, it is essential for them to associate with adults and persons of different age groups, and to get a variety of experiences in life within their own communities. The first organization encourages local citizens to communicate and hold deliberations with each other, proceeding with local networks as a means by which education is enriched in the community as a whole. The second is seen as an organization that activates various programs within the community, offers some types of information, gives counseling to groups that act on behalf of the youth, and registers and introduces some leaders or volunteers. In terms of the decentralization of the educational administration, the latter report recommended a new role for the Board of Education (Kyôiku Iinkai). It is one that supports and accelerates the cooperation and fusion of educational functions in the community. In short, the board of education has to realize the measures that are proposed by the 1996 report. Following these reports, many local initiatives have been implemented in each municipality. It is certain that these initiatives have

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been promoted by the two central council reports. However, the Second Research Committee of the Educational System, which was established by the Japan Teachers Union (JTU), had already declared in 1983: “Recognizing the real context in which the family’s competence in bringing up children has declined and the community’s relationships concerning education has weakened gradually, it is necessary for us to make efforts to renew the family’s competence and formulate new relationships for bringing up children in the community. These efforts can be called neighborhood networks for cooperative activities of upbringing.” (Dainiji Kyôiku Seido Kentô Iinkai 1983: 41)

2.1 Activities of the JPCA JPCA (Japan Parents & Citizens Association For Education), which is an organization advocated and promoted by the former president of the National Congress of Parents and Teachers Association of Japan, Matsui Iwane, who was also a member of the Central Council for Education, has begun to act. Features of this organization, which encourages the community’s citizens to support schools and children’s activities outside of schools, are as follows: 1. From the beginning, there is the intention to establish a nationwide network of local activities for education. 2. It is an organization in which former PTA members can participate in volunteer activities related to youth upbringing in the community. Its key action programs consist of registering educational volunteers, establishing a compensatory system for supporters who act on behalf of schools in the community, providing opportunities for the training of educational volunteers, and providing nationwide information through its website. 2.2 The Committee for Promoting Close, Mutual Relationships (Fureai Suishin Iinkai) in Saitama Prefecture This committee that is established in each junior high school district has tasks such as organizing a group of volunteer supporters for school activities, implementing actions for preventing bullying and delinquency, and promoting the experimental activities of children in the community. Similar attempts have been extended here and there

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throughout the country. Atsushi Kadowaki (1999) introduced many similar examples. 2.3 The Community Conference on Education in Osaka Prefecture Among many attempts developed throughout Japan, an organization called “The Community Conference of Education” (Chiiki Kyôiku Kyôgikai) should be given special attention. This is established at each junior high school district under the authority of the Osaka Prefectural Board of Education. The aim is to reconstruct the relationship between school, family and the community, to activate school education and its actions in the community through promoting various initiatives taken by the community as a whole, to support children towards fulfilling their self-realization through enriching human relations, and to foster their “zest for living.” It has programs as follows: 1. Plans for active education in the community a) supporting activities for early childhood education b) enhancing children’s participation in many activities within the community c) supporting initiatives and learning carried out by the community’s citizens d) providing some programs of learning activities through the use of school equipment and facilities 2. Activities for supporting school a) cooperation with the school’s self-assessment in order to ensure its improvement b) cooperation with the implementation of experimental learning by pupils c) activities related to the prevention of juvenile delinquency, including the out-of-school patrol The reason why this organization should be noted is that cooperative activity with a self-evaluation for school improvement is included in the main activities. This cooperative activity involves an external assessment of the school evaluation made by principal, teachers, parents and pupils.

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2.4 Features and Backgrounds of These Efforts One of the notable features of the activities mentioned above is the connection between the family, school and local group and the establishment of networks in the community. In the past, efforts were made to enrich school education or family life, or enhance the existing local organizations in the community separately, but now there are attempts to connect the family, school and local group in the community in order to revive its influence in bringing up children. The various problems of children can no longer be addressed through an isolated approach. There are some factors that go towards accelerating these trends increasingly. Firstly, a comprehensive five-day school week system will start in the next school year. Therefore pupils will have the opportunity to spend their time in their homes and in their communities for two days a week. Secondly, it is becoming difficult to perform the extra-curricular activities, especially sports activities in the schools, which have been done often even on Sunday and have played an important role in bringing up pupils and preventing delinquency. This is because teachers who should supervise these activities are aging, and don’t have time or can’t afford to coach pupils as a result of becoming busier. Thirdly, it is necessary to reconstruct the local community from the perspective of reviving its capability of fostering children as well as of reviving itself by participating in educating children. The goal is to build up a unique community where everyone lives comfortably. In recognizing these trends, the study group on the reform of Japanese schools in which the author has participated as a chairperson claims that the community is a place where people including adults and children, working persons and retired employees, disabled persons and foreign residents live together and share their lives, and children can meet various adults and appreciate the community’s cultural assets. (Gakkô Kaikaku Kenkyû Iinkai 2000). The study group provides a basis for bringing up children, and proposes the reform of Japanese schooling as a part of the revival of the community’s competence in rising children.

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3. The “Local Conference for Education” of Kawasaki City A notable event among various activities is the “Local Conference for Education” established in Kawasaki City, which has a population of about 1,200,000, including 20,000 foreign residents. In Kawasaki City from the latter half of the 1970s to the early 1980s violence in the junior high schools and various forms of juvenile delinquency were reported. The authorities of Kawasaki City, who decided that this condition could not be resolved by school employees alone, started a project, “Promoting Education in Kawasaki”, which was meant to address behavioral problems such as juvenile violence both within and outside of schools throughout the community. It focused on thorough dialogue among school employees, parents and citizens. The character of this project was manifested in the implementation guideline: “The complex and various problems in the school, family and community have caused juvenile problems which are increasing and becoming more serious. Therefore it is important to make efforts to provide sound conditions for bringing up young people through deepening the discussions of behavioral problems among all citizens and reviewing the educational function of the school, family and community.”

On the basis of this guideline, “Citizens’ Conferences” (Shimin Kaigi) were held at 242 places during 1984 and 1985. More than 6,500 citizens attended and expressed their views. Consequently, now the “Local Conference for Education” is organized in Kawasaki. Its purposes, structure and activities are as follows: 1. Main purposes a) to form networks through agreements between parents, school employees and ordinary citizens by discussing children’s upbringing as well as the lifelong learning network of local citizens, b) to encourage local citizens’ participation in daily educational activities in the community and reflect their opinions on municipal administration, c) to promote new types of educational activities in the community by means of linking and cooperating with various groups such as neighborhood associations, particularly neighborhood associations of children,

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d) to support children’s healthy development by promoting juvenile activities in the community, e) to support activities by local citizens for the promotion of lifelong learning. 2. Membership a) representatives of groups that are concerned with children in the community such as the PTA, and neighborhood associations of children, b) citizens who are recommended by other citizens and have concerns about education, c) professional staff who works at schools, welfare facilities, cultural centers for children and community centers, and so forth. 3. Activities a) children’s “round-table” discussion and adult’s meetings to talk about education, b) providing information by distributing its own newspaper, c) various collaborative activities such as the campaign for making the community sound, supervision of students outside of school, social welfare activities, and consultation concerning education issues, d) community learning activities and cooperation with schools. In addition, Kawasaki City should be noted for its enactment of a new local regulation to facilitate children’s human rights, which is new to Japan as a whole. The community is defined as a place for children’s development on the basis of the regulation below. “Kawasaki City has to make effort to improve childcare circumstances and education by ensuring that the community is a safe place for children to grow up in, and by allowing them to enrich their human relationships and exercise their own rights within the community through cooperative activities between families, facilities of development and learning, and cultural and athletic institutions. Kawasaki City also should encourage the autonomous actions of children, and promote their participation in municipal government and diffuse its functions by considering that it is very important for children to have opportunities to express their views on municipal government as citizens. Their opinions are manifested concerning the management of institutions for growth and learning or other places for their activities as members, and enable them to do cultural and athletic activities in the community.”

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In short, in Kawasaki City for children the right to participate in local and municipal government has come to be guaranteed. Children are not simply objects to be securely fostered. Consequently, Kawasaki City will start a unique program called “The Conference for Promoting School Education” (Gakkô Kyôiku Suishin Kaigi) in the next school year. This system is better than “The School Councilor System” presented in the Central Council Report of 1998 because in these conferences, pupils, too, will be represented, along with parents and ordinary citizens.

4. Toward the Revival of the Community’s Competence in Bringing up Children: Learning From the Experiences of Kawasaki City As the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child points out, nowadays a child should be recognized as a subject who can exercise his/her own rights. Therefore, the child should be recognized as a subject who lives, learns and develops rather than as just an object to be cared for and educated. Kawasaki City pays special attention to the child’s right to participate in all activities in the community and grants even the right to participate in municipal government and community design. It seems important for the fundamental prevention of crime that a child can have community life in partnership with adults. “The Local Conference for Education” has been established in every junior school district. However, this does not mean it is based on school education, and it does not complement school education. Though it supports school activities, the emphasis is different. Rather, the school is set up to participate in the activities of the community. This attempt goes towards a breakaway from “the school education centered principle,” which is one of the fundamental causes of Japanese youth problems. While school should be made use of as one of the community’s facilities, it is desirable that children also experience values, which are different from the ones usually stressed in school education. Attempts to create a pleasant environment especially for junior high and high school students are being developed in other municipalities as well. A process of „de-schooling“ and children’s participation characterize them. They focus on “the relationship between the child and

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the adult” and “the participation of children” rather than on school education and education itself. This is a very important point in resolving the problem behavior of children in Japanese society. Of course, many problems have to be addressed. In particular, there is the problem of children and families who don’t want to or can’t participate in such activities. Therefore, whether or not it is possible to appeal to such children and families will be the key for successful network building. The following words aptly express what the author wants to emphasize most as a conclusion. “Children are part of society. It is essential for them to form a partnership with adults, and have the trust and confidence as a generation through participating in various social activities and playing a meaningful role. It is required that children’s autonomous governance is encouraged and that they are empowered in some way. In this way they will be able to realize their own capabilities and resolve their own problems by themselves as a generation” (Kodomo no kenri jôyaku 1999/3: 4)

5. References Chûô Kyôiku Shingikai (1996): 21 seiki o tenbô shita waga kuni no kyôiku no arikata ni tsuite (dai ichi ji) (First Report on the Model for Japanese Education from the Perspective of the Twenty-First Century). Tôkyô: Chûô Kyôiku Shingikai. —— (1998): Kongo no chihô kyôiku gyôsei no arikata ni tsuite (How Local Administration on Education should be). Tôkyô: Chûô Kyôiku Shingikai. Dainiji Kyôiku Seido Kentô Iinkai (ed.) (1983): Gendai Nihon no kyôiku kaikaku (Education Reforms in Contemporary Japan). Tôkyô: Keiso Shobô. Gakkô Kaikaku Kenkyû Iinkai (2000): Tsunagari, tsunagu gakkô e (Towards a School which Connects and Creates Bonds). In: Kokumin kyôiku bunka sôgô kenkyujo (ed.), Kyôiku sôken 2000 nenpô. Tôkyô: Advantage Server. Kadowaki, Atsushi (1999). Kodomo no shakairyoku (Social Competency of Children). Tôkyô: Iwanami. Kawasaki-shi (2001): Kodomo no kenri ni kansuru jôrei (Stipulations Regarding the Rights of Children). Kawasaki: Kawasaki-shi Kawasaki-shi Kyôiku Iinkai (1984): Kawasaki-shi kyôiku suishin jigyô jisshi yôryô (An Outline of Practical Operations to Promote Education in Kawasaki City). Kawasaki: Kawasaki-shi Kyôiku Iinkai. —— (1986): Iki-iki toshita Kawasaki-shi no kyôiku o mezashite (Striving for a Lively Education in Kawasaki City). Kawasaki: Kawasaki-shi Kyôiku Iinkai. Kodomo no kenri jôyaku (The Treaty on the Rights of Children Quarterly), 1999 No. 3 , Tôkyô: Eideru Kenkyûsho. Nihon PCA Kyôiku Shinkôkai (2000): ‘Kyôiku borantia’ o hajimemashô (Let’s Start ‘Educational Volunteering’). Tôkyô: Nihon PCA Kyôiku Shinkôkai.

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Ôsaka-fu Kyôiku Iinkai (2001): Chiiki to tomo ni ayumu gakkô to kyôiku komyuniti no keisei o mezashite (Striving to Build a School and Educational Community in Cooperation with the Local Community). Ôsaka: Ôsaka-fu Kyôiku Iinkai. Saitama-ken Kyôiku Iinkai (2001): Katei, gakkô, chiiki fureai suishin jigyô (Promoting a Closer Connection between Families, Schools and the Local Communities). Urawa: Saitama-ken Kyôiku Iinkai. United Nations (1990): United Nations Guidelines on the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency (The Riyadh Guidelines).

THE JUVENILE TRAINING SCHOOLS OF JAPAN— TEACHING YOUNG SERIOUS OFFENDERS HOW TO LIVE AND “HOW TO BE” Anne Metzler

1. Introduction In many industrial nations today, owing to rising juvenile crime rates, the call for severe punishment of young offenders continually intensifies. In Japan in April 2001, this resulted in a tightening of the Juvenile Law, which up to this time had been valid and unaltered for more than fifty years.1 In the heated public discussion about the need for reform of the Juvenile Justice and Rehabilitation system, however, a fact totally left out has been that in spite of rising crime rate figures and some extraordinary cases of violent crimes committed by youngsters, the juvenile crime rate in Japan still appears to be amazingly low in comparison with that of other nations (Metzler, A.1999). Generally, Japan’s low crime rate is attributed to the well-functioning system of informal social control by family members, the school, the neighborhood, the workplace and so forth. In contrast to young people in other industrial nations, Japanese juveniles are regarded as being more strongly and tightly integrated into these social groups and organizations. Moreover, the importance of social bonds and social relations is said to be especially high in Japanese society. Unlike in western nations, the Japanese is said to hardly define himself or herself as an individual person but as part of a social group, 1

The discussion about the reform of the Juvenile Law began after the sensational homicide in Kôbe in 1997 where an 11-year-old boy was killed and decapitated by a 14-year-old junior high school student. In the following years a series of heinous crimes by juveniles occurred. All changes in the Juvenile Law, which can be characterized as a tightening of the law, refer mainly to the treatment of juveniles who commit serious, violent offences such as homicide or robbery. For the debate about the reform as well as the actual changes of the law in detail, see Schwarzenegger in this volume.

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meaning the social relationships he/she is involved in. Through this mechanism, the net of social control, interdependence and rules are said to be very closely woven, and these are said to counteract deviance and its recurrence respectively (Miyazawa/Kühne 1991; Tokuoka 1988: 105–108; Rössner 1997: 215; see also Ackermann 1996). In view of the strong emphasis on and effectiveness of informal social control within Japanese society, it is not surprising that concerning the treatment of juvenile offenders, it is the factor of informal social control and not that of formal sanctions and prosecution which is given stress. That becomes evident by having a look at statistics of family court dispositions concerning young offenders: generally, the offenders are met with either community-based measures of only minor restrictions which leave them in society or they face no formal measures at all (Hômushô 1997: 335, 482). But even in Japan there are cases in which informal social control shows signs of malfunction and the young offender’s lapse back into crime. In most cases, they are juveniles from problem families, unemployed juveniles, juveniles who have dropped out of school and/or juveniles who are in close touch with deviant subcultures (Mizuno 1995: 534; Hômushô 1990: 379, 1998: 325–327, Yonekawa in this volume). Thus, there are juveniles who show crumbling relationships with conventional organizations and groups or juveniles without conventional social relationships at all. These juveniles are handled with institutional treatment measures, that is, measures of intensive intervention that expel them from society. Generally, they are admitted to a juvenile training school (shônen‘in). Today, there are 54 of such juvenile training schools in Japan in which annually about three percent of all young offenders handled by the family courts are admitted for a period from three months up to one year on average. Like most of the judicial institutional treatment facilities in the industrial countries of today (Dünkel 1993: 93–99; Kinki bengôshi rengô-kai 1999: 32–33), these institutions aim neither at merely taking the young offenders into custody nor punishing them. Rather, their measures are directed at the education of the residents; these institutions pursue “corrective education” (kyôsei kyôiku), which “removes their delinquent behavior and enhances their ability to conform to society,” (Mizuno 1995: 531; Tsubouchi 1995: 521) and “enables them to reintegrate into society” (Tanoue 1998: 92–93). This chapter poses the following question:

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which means do the juvenile training schools use to educate their residents to be socially conforming and lawful members of society?

2. “Corrective Education” in Juvenile Training Schools: Enabling the Residents to Build up Social Bonds? Considering the importance of social relationships in Japanese society on one hand and the clear lack of social bonds of the training school residents on the other, one can assume that the educational efforts of the training schools would be most effective if they focused on supporting the residents in their entry into social relationships and, by doing so, reactivated the net of informal social control. Thus, the question is whether the training schools really do that and, if they do, by which means they attempt to enable the residents to integrate themselves into society. This question is highly topical, because after the sensationalized homicide of an 11-year-old boy by a 14-year-old junior high school pupil in Kobe, the Japanese system of rehabilitation came in for a lot of criticism. Training schools were accused of not fulfilling their claim of educating the residents. Instead they are said to merely take them into custody (Okudaira 1997: 29). Since particular attention has been drawn to the aspect of building up social relationships as a theoretical framework of the topic, control theory, as described by Travis Hirschi (1969), seems to be the most applicable. Control theory, which is well-known and accepted by Japanese criminal sociologists as well (Metzler, M. 1999), differs from most other criminal theories in that it does not consider criminal behavior a factor that needs to be explained. It is instead the conforming behavior that requires explanation. The theory starts from the assumption that without some kind of social control and integration, a person automatically tends to deviate. It is thought that only through the existence of social relationships and social control patterns can a phenomenon such as conformity be explained. Hirschi assumes that four kinds of social bonds lead to socially conforming behavior: attachment (to meaningful persons), commitment (to conventional goals), involvement (in conventional activities) and at least belief (in

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socially accepted rules). If these social bonds begin to crumble, deviation is likely to occur.2 A weak point of the theory is that it fails to explain how these social bonds are required. This causes problems with regard to the study of the educative and rehabilitative measures in juvenile training schools. Thus, following the suggestion of Kaiser (1993), the control theory is linked with the concept of socialization. With the specific socialization an individual has gone through, it can be explained how social relationships have been achieved, how stable and intensive these relationships are and by what means they are maintained and strengthened. If the socialization of an individual has gone wrong, social bonds crumble or they are completely lacking. In the extreme, the person becomes delinquent. Proceeding from this theoretical framework, the juvenile training schools can be understood as auxiliary socializing institutions that help their residents to build up social relationships. This is the starting point of the current study of the author, which is based on written sources as well as fieldwork.3 According to Hirschi, social bonds are subdivided into four components, and the build up of social relationships with regard to each of the four components is analyzed. What becomes clearly evident in the course of the study is that the training schools on the one hand show intensive attempts to provide the residents with solid experiences in social relationships in the sense of involvement and attachment. They do so, for instance, by subjecting them to extensive vocational or academic training courses, by providing them with experiences in conventional leisure time activities and hobbies or by firmly integrating meetings and interaction between residents and parents into the monthly schedule. But above all, they are aiming at providing the residents with abilities and orientations, which are linked more to the components of commitment and belief. That means that they make every effort to let residents internalize normative patterns of behavior that are absolutely indispensable for 2

In 1990, a revised version of the theory was published by Gottfredson/Hirschi (1990). The theory was supplemented by the concept of “self control” which can be interpreted as an inward-reflection of the four components of social bonds (see also Metzler, M. 1999). 3 In 1997 and 1998 the author visited four juvenile training schools within Tôkyô and interviewed the directors and staff of the schools. This paper refers mainly to the statements of the director of the T.-Shônen’in, which took place on November 20th 1998.

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being able to enter into relationships with social groups and persons and get involved in conventional activities. Thus, the educational efforts of the institutions are mainly focused on regulating and controlling the behavior of the residents in order to enable them to integrate. From this point on, I would like to explain how the training schools proceed in order to achieve their aims, which strategies and measures concerning the regulation of behavior are used and what this implies with regard to the nature of rehabilitation in Japan. For doing so, three aspects that apply to any of the institutions will be discussed: first, the high attention that is paid to rules, discipline and order; second, the high importance of educating in and by the group; and third, the importance that is attached to intensive and thorough normative-moral instruction. 2.1 The High Level of Attention Paid to Rules, Discipline and Order All residents of juvenile training schools are confronted with a detailed catalogue of regulations that they are strictly obliged to keep. Some of the rules are aimed at ensuring the safety of the residents, controlling them and guaranteeing that the days go off without any disturbances. Others are comprised of manners and social “do’s and don’ts” (Fujioka 1992: 102). What is striking, however, is that many of the rules seem to make no sense at all. Their only meaning seems to lie in their keeping. As an example of the punctiliousness of the rules, the house regulations of a juvenile training school can be cited (Figure 1).

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Figure 1: The House Regulations of a Juvenile Training School Morning music

Getting up

Morning roll call

Cleaning the rooms

Meals

As soon as the morning music starts, one has to open one’s eyes. One prepares one’s senses to immediately get out of bed when the signal for getting up is given (Those persons who need a long time to take up the necessary stance are allowed to begin with the preparations for the morning roll call, provided that the cellmates give their agreement to that). As soon as the sign for getting up is given, one has to get out of bed immediately. The cellmate in charge opens the window and puts away the bedding. (The table on which the futons are to be hung has to be pushed to the wall). One has to take up the stance for the morning roll call and wait for it. The cellmate in charge stands on the right and loudly gives the command “attention!” or “salute!” and then “Good morning!” A distinct and honest morning greeting has to be given. (The uniform has to be worn in the instructed way and the nameplate must not be forgotten). On the supervisor’s signal for the end of the morning roll call, one has to take up the prescribed posture. Those residents from the cell who are assigned to cleaning the hall and the assembly room must swiftly do the cleaning (If there are too few in number to master the work, the residents from the Lifestyle training course are required to help them. Those residents who are in charge and who are not assigned to cleaning the hall and the assembly room must clean their own cell. Those residents who are not in charge must go to the bathroom and wash themselves. (While doing a thorough cleaning on Sunday with humble cooperation, all places and corners, which during the usual cleaning procedure are not taken into account, have to be cleaned.) One has to take one’s place and immediately take up a silent, contemplative posture. After finishing the meal, one has to wait in silence and contemplation. During the meal, speaking is prohibited. (At breakfast, everyone has to think about his/ her laundry and bring the pieces of laundry according to the order on the washing list). In the dining hall, the cellmate in charge fetches the hot tea water and takes back the remaining dishes and the kitchenware. (The clearing of the table is to be done by the next cellmate in

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Leaving the dormitory

Roll calls

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charge if the present cellmate in charge is busy taking back the kitchenware.) Before the meal, one has to wash one’s hands carefully. The side dishes have to be taken from the right in the order of sauces and several soy sauces. No one should take more than he or she really needs. The remaining soy sauce is not to be thrown away. Leisure time has to be spent usefully. In the cell it is forbidden to speak loudly, sing, walk around without reason, lean against the wall and wear one’s uniform in an untidy way. On the command for leaving the dormitory, everyone has to line up before the cells. At the exit of the dormitory everyone lines up two abreast according to the cell number he or she belongs to and waits until the staff member in charge leaves the dormitory. At the boot cupboard everyone has to line up two abreast after changing into gym shoes. At the sports field everyone lines up three abreast (one must not forget one’s place in line). Up to this time there is an absolute ban on speaking. The morning roll call, midday roll call and evening roll call have to be practiced with dignity. The marching, the roll calls, the sprints, the following continual commands, the exercises and the training in squads have to be performed without reluctance and with sincere effort. During the vocational courses, the physical training, the club activities and with regard to all other parts of the educational program, one is obliged to comply with the ban on speaking, show no reluctance to following instructions and strive with all one’s might. After returning to the cell in the evening, one has to change swiftly into the cell uniform and write in one’s diary. Concerning the supply of the laundry, the clothes have to be folded jointly. Then, the leisure time has to be spent. The cellmate in charge has to submit the diaries for the preparations for beginning study on one’s own. On this occasion, letters can also be submitted. Five minutes before studying on one’s own, the restrooms have to be vacated. Afterwards, talking and going to the restroom are strictly prohibited. After finishing the preparations to study, one has to start immediately. The studies only comprise of writing exercises, arithmetic and Japanese. Reading, the preparation for seminar papers, essays and correspondence degree courses has to be done during leisure time. If it is necessary to do this during the time, which is allotted, for self-study, then one has to ask for

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which is allotted, for self-study, then one has to ask for permission one week in advance. The broadcast of the corrective education program over the loudspeakers must be listened to silently after tidying one’s desk. Listening to Five minutes after finishing with studying on one’s own NHK news the restrooms have to be vacated. The cells have to be tidied up and the preparations for going to the assembly hall have to be started. The walk to the assembly hall begins with cell 1. The return to the dormitory begins with cell 6. (The person in charge has to open the windows). After entering the assembly hall, one has to submit one’s study notes and take one’s place. There, one has to wait in silence and contemplation. In the assembly hall, there is an absolute ban on speaking. During the broadcast of NHK news, one has to remain in one’s seat and listen seriously. Everyone takes one’s place, which has been assigned, to him/ her. Watching televi- While watching television, it is prohibited to go to the sion restroom (If it cannot be helped, one has to ask a staff member for permission). During the time allotted for watching television, one is required not only to watch TV, but also to spend the time usefully by reading and studying on one’s own. The permitted TV channels are on the list. After watching TV, one has to wait in contemplative silence. Preparations for Preparations for going to bed have to be made swiftly. One going to bed has to get one’s blanket ready as instructed and put on pajamas (Underneath the pajamas only underwear must be worn.). One has to wait silently for the roll call. The clothing and the underwear have to be folded up properly and put on the table, which has to be 30cm away. After getting the signal for contemplative silence, one has to reflect on the day that has passed. Lights out Thirty minutes after the roll call, going to the restroom is no longer allowed. The blanket may not cover the head. Talking is strictly prohibited. If the ban is ignored, investigations will be initiated. Other Tasks of the cellmate in charge: roll calls, opening the window, cleaning the cell, serving the meals in the dining room and submitting the diaries. The cell resident in charge is on duty for one week. In his/her absence, the next cellmate in charge takes over his/her duties Tidying the desk before leaving the dormitory: The desk has to be put a slight distance from the wall. The floor cushions have to be put under the desk (After entering the

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cushions have to be put under the desk (After entering the dormitory, one should be able to start immediately with preparations for studying on one’s own). The supervisor who is in charge of the dormitory is Mr. 00 of room XXX. If he or she is absent, Mr. 000 is in charge.

Rules for dormitory III: Be energetic! No chatting! Have an obedient attitude! Source: Tano 1998: 215.

From Figure 1 it can be inferred that even everyday needs such as going to the toilet are regimented. It is clear that the rigidity of the regulations is aimed not only at leading the residents to a properly, rule-abiding way of life. It is also used simply as a means of disciplining them. They must comply with every rule, even to the most punctilious one, without questioning it and from that, get accustomed to compliance to social rules in general. In this respect, setting great store by the strict compliance to rules can be defined as a method of behavior regulation in itself, as the director of the T. Juvenile Training School explained. Reports of former training school residents give evidence that the formally prescribed regulations are strongly pushed through (see Tano 1998: 92; 98–99; 108). This is ensured by special educational methods such as “reflection meetings” (hansei-shûkai), which I will describe later on, as well as by a set of disciplinary measures at the authorities’ disposal if an offence against the rules is noticed. The most frequently imposed measure is the reduction of marks in meritorious conduct, which are monthly presented to all the residents. Since life in training schools is based on a progressive-stage system in which residents proceed to the next stage only by showing a good daily performance, the reduction of marks due to breaking the rules of conduct is tantamount to the prolonging of the length of stay. In this respect, discipline and strict compliance to rules, at least before the eyes of a supervisor, can be viewed as indispensable for ensuring an early dismissal for the juveniles.

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What is used in addition as a means of disciplining the residents is the roll call for which the juveniles have to line up three times a day before mealtimes and the daily marching upon the command of a supervisor, which is the rule at least in the training schools for boys. A feature similar to the marching is the daily physical training, which focuses on long-distance running, circuit training, knee-bends and press-ups. According to reports of former residents, the training is so demanding that it often lead the juveniles to the limits of their physical ability (Tano 1998: 91,98,107). This follows the motto “In a healthy body lives a healthy mind” (Hamai 1997: 66). To toughen the body is considered tantamount to toughening the resistance of the residents to falling back into deviance. Furthermore, according to the director of the T. juvenile training school, the physical training is considered as a means of fighting against the unhealthy, dissolute life that the residents had been leading up to then. In addition to that, the training is considered as a means of providing them with a sense of endurance, persistence, patience, determination and teamwork that will lead them to a rule-abiding way of life. A further means of disciplining the juveniles and “drumming” a proper way of life into them is the tight and strict schedule on which daily life in the training school is based. By having a look at the weekly schedule of a juvenile training school, one can see that the day goes off in a very rigid rhythm and that it is nearly completely filled up with compulsory lessons and program elements (figure 2). All in all, the juveniles are subjected to an educational program that takes up nearly 50 hours per week, including evening hours and weekends (Okudaira 1998: 22). Moreover, juveniles are hardly granted time at their disposal: Within the time schedule, “leisure time” is given very little space; usually it is available only on weekends. But the residents are urged to spend even their “leisure” time usefully, for instance, by cleaning their rooms or by self-study (jiko keikaku gakushû) (Fujioka 1992: 105). Thus, there is no space for unscheduled activities or idly “loafing around.” The residents are constantly urged to spend their time in a useful way.

Figure 2: Weekly Schedule of a Juvenile Training School Time

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

6:25 6:30– 7:20

Morning music Getting up, Roll call, Washing, Cleaning, Reading

Morning music Getting up, Roll call, Washing, Cleaning, Reading

Morning music Getting up, Roll call, Washing, Cleaning, Reading

Morning music Getting up, Roll call, Washing, Cleaning, Reading

Morning music Getting up, Roll call, Washing, Cleaning, Reading

7:20– 8:05

Breakfast Break Self-study Leaving the dormitory Morning assembly Vocational training Vocational training Vocational training Lunch Break

Breakfast Break Self-study Leaving the dormitory Morning assembly Vocational training Vocational training Vocational training Lunch Break

Breakfast Break Self-study Leaving the dormitory Morning assembly Culture clubs

Breakfast Break Self-study Leaving the dormitory Morning assembly Vocational training Vocational training Vocational training Lunch Break

Breakfast Break Self-study Leaving the dormitory Morning assembly Vocational training Vocational training Vocational training Lunch Break

8:05– 8:45 8:45– 8:50 9:00– 9:50

10:00–10:50 11:00–11:50 12:00–13:00

Culture clubs Physical training Lunch Break

Saturday

Sunday

6:50 Morning Music 7:00 Getting up, Roll call, Washing 7:30 Breakfast

6:50 Morning music 7:00 Getting up, Roll call, Washing 7:30 Breakfast

Physical training

Physical training

Aesthetic arts Aesthetic arts

Test in school subjects Reflection essay

Lunch Break

Lunch Break

Time

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

13:10–14:00

Vocational training

14:10–15:00

Vocational training

Lifestyle training (disciplinary education) Lifestyle training (group training)

15:10–16:00

Vocational training

Lifestyle training (Kendô)

16:00–17:00

Clearing up Cleaning Dinner Break Reflection meeting Diary writing Self-study Television Roll call Lights out

Clearing up Cleaning Dinner Break Reflection meeting Diary writing Self-study Television Roll call Lights out

17:00–18:00 18:00–19:00 19:00–20:00 20:00– 20:50 21:00

Source: Tano 1998: 237.

Friday

Saturday

Sunday

Team education Guidance related to problem behavior Three persons’ Course regardiscussion, ding plans for Individual the future counseling Special club Physical training, Recreation

Vocational training

Leisure time Recreation in the dormitory Leisure time Recreation in the dormitory

Television Leisure time

Television Leisure time

Clearing up Cleaning Dinner Break Bathing

Clearing up Cleaning Dinner Break Reflection meeting Diary writing Self-study Television Roll call Lights out

Leisure time Recreation in the dormitory Clearing up Cleaning Dinner Break Bathing

Diary writing Self-study Television Roll call Lights out

Thursday

Clearing up Cleaning Dinner Break Reflection meeting Diary writing Self-study Television Roll call Lights out

Vocational training

Vocational training

Diary writing Self-study Television Roll call Lights out

Television Leisure time

Clearing up Cleaning Dinner Break Reflection meeting Diary writing Self-study Television Roll call Lights out

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2.2 High Degree of Importance of Group-Based Education In written sources as well as in statements about the training schools visited, the importance of group-based education is highly emphasized. Especially with regard to the motivation of the residents, the group structure is considered to be indispensable. The director of the T. Juvenile Training School explains it as follows: “One of the most important means of motivating the residents is to organize daily life as group life. Thus, if all residents but oneself are demonstrating maximum effort and trying to make the best of their stay, then one feels ashamed. Usually, juveniles who have just been admitted to the training school would like to show immediate resistance and refuse to join in anything. But then they watch their residents who are doing all they can to prove themselves in physical training, and gradually they realize that they have to join in, and that they don’t have any choice. Thus, we trust in the residents to set a good example. In this way, an atmosphere of correction is created. No one works and lives just for him/ her; instead, a communal spirit is created. If this fails, then there is no way to motivate the juveniles. Then you can go on trying to educate them forever, and you won’t get anywhere with them. It would be just an assembly of criminals.”

The high importance of group-based education can be seen in regularly organized group discussions as well as in so-called “role activities” (yakuwari katsudô) where members of one dormitory are jointly responsible for carrying out duties such as cleaning the hall or serving the meals, receiving orders from one of them who is alternating in command. In addition to this, there is the so-called “guidance according to the type of deviation” (mondai gunbetsu shidô): According to the specific type of deviant behavior (for instance, drug abuse, traffic negligence, joining criminal organizations) or specific features such as a problematic family background, the residents are assigned to groups. Each group is treated with a set of educational measures that are suited to the specific problem, such as special lessons, discussions, reflection essays, instruction with audio-visual aids and role-playing. Besides that, “club activities” (kurabu katsudô) that are provided in the fields of music, sports and traditional and modern arts, are part of the weekly schedule. These and the frequently held gyôji, that are common sports or cultural events, field trips and ceremonies that bring some variety to the normal monthly schedule, belong to the educational field of “special activities” (tokubetsu katsudô). Through them it is expected that

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the residents internalize a “healthy way of thinking, a healthy view of things, and healthy behavior” by learning in and through the group as well as how to behave in a group (Okudaira 1997: 30). The residents are usually not accommodated in single rooms, but together with two or three peers. This is aimed at fostering mutual behavior control. In order to ensure that this really leads to mutual control and not to chumminess, a so-called “reflection meeting” (hansei-shûkai) is held every evening in each training school for all members of one dormitory. Under the supervision of a staff member, they are required to reflect on their rule offending (Hamai 1997: 77, Tano 1998: 237). The meetings are aimed at evaluating one’s daily conduct. However, the evaluation is expected to be carried out not by a staff member, but primarily by the peer group. Rule-abiding behavior is supposed to be praised, and rule-offending behavior is meant to be made consequently a matter of serious concern. The meetings, for instance, go on in the way that each resident is required to name three cases of rule breaking of residents he or she has watched that day. In the “reflection meeting” of the Juvenile Training School of T. visited by the author, one resident was put in the “hot seat” and was exposed to criticism by his peers. According to the director of the school, the peers know very well about his daily lifestyle, they know about his bad as well as his good sides and habits, and they provide him with appropriate feedback. The meetings are focused on the principle that every single person is responsible for the keeping of the group norms, for the “success of the whole.” Therefore, the direction of the school considers the peers’ report of rule breaking not as denunciation but rather as obligation. Reports of former residents, however, show that the regulation of conduct by the peer group does not always have the desired effect; instead, it can turn into harassment and bullying. This may be the reason that the “reflection meetings” (hansei-shûkai) are considered by the residents as being one of the most frightening components of the educational program (see Tano 1998). To counteract this negative effect as much as possible, the attending staff member seems to need to pay a particularly high level of attention. But even the director of the Education Department of the Bureau for Protection and Corrective Education of the Ministry of Justice (Hômushô kyôseikyoku) has to admit (Okudaira 1997: 33) that the problem cannot be avoided completely. Another important method of group teaching is the social skills training (SST or shakai tekiô kunren) that is aimed at providing resi-

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dents with skills and techniques to master everyday life situations as well as conflict situations and teaching them the proper behavior in certain role situations. Concerning the training, two aims can be differentiated: one is to impress upon the residents the appropriate patterns of behavior in situations that are dangerous and tricky with regard to lapsing back into crime after their dismissal. According to Tanoue (1998: 99), it is regarded as the most difficult dilemma if the juveniles are invited by friends to participate in deviant or delinquent acts because they neither want to lose their friends nor want to expose themselves to the danger of being arrested again. These kinds of situations are simulated in role playing, and the juveniles demonstrate possible forms of refusals and other negative reactions. Secondly, through the social skills training the residents are expected to internalize the proper, correct rules of conduct as an “orderly member of society” (shakaijin) in everyday situations. That includes correct behavior on the phone and correct conduct in dealing with friends, superiors, colleagues and those within the family, all of which is practiced in role playing (Tanoue 1998: 959). The director of the T. Juvenile Training School explains the objective as follows: “The residents of training schools usually have large deficiencies in dealing with other people. If they are, for instance, working in a company and are reprimanded or criticized, they tend to explode immediately and be just on the verge on giving in their notice. Thus, they have to learn to apologize and how to act correctly. These kinds of things are practiced in the social skills training. Formerly, providing it to them just by talking was attempted. By doing so the residents comprehended it rationally, but they failed to translate it into action. It was as if the body was not able to recall it. Today it is attempted through role-playing for which a video is used. A certain situation is given, for instance, a meeting between an employee and a head of department. The situation is recorded. By watching the video later on, the juveniles outline their impressions, and the attending staff member gives comments and advice. In this way, the body internalizes how to behave. If the juveniles actually get in a similar kind of situation after dismissal from training school, they are able to respond in the right way.”

Thus, what the training schools aim to do is provide the juveniles with the necessary skills that help them to cope with social life. But the social skill training is not only supposed to enable the residents to cope with this role just from an external, formal point of view. Rather, they are expected to internalize this throughout their lives. They will always be but one part of a larger network, a part of certain social

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groups and organizations, and they must always assume the appropriate roles that they are meant to fulfill for the benefit of society (Fujioka 1992: 98–99; 104). In this regard, the social skill training is closely linked to the last point to be mentioned in this connection: the important role of intensive and thorough moral-normative instruction. 2.3 High importance of moral-normative instruction The attempts of the training schools to have an effect on the value orientation of the juveniles through thorough moral-normative instruction can be subsumed under the headword “life guidance” (seikatsu shidô). Life guidance is said to be the most important part of the educational curriculum or the “core” or “center of corrective education” (Igarashi 1993: 41; Tsuchimochi 1989: 131; Okudaira 1997: 30; see Figure 3). Through life guidance, the juveniles are expected to internalize a healthy and proper style of living in all areas of life (Igarashi 1993: 41) and develop a “healthy way of thinking, a healthy view of things, and healthy behavior.” The latter corresponds to the aim of the educational field’s “special activities” mentioned above. But whereas “special activities” are based solely on group-oriented education, life guidance also makes use of methods of individual education and guidance (Okudaira 1997: 30). It is divided into six components, namely “educational/occupational guidance” (shinro shidô), “guidance related to problem behavior” (mondai kôdô shidô), “training regarding lifestyle and basic daily habits” (kihonteki seikatsu kunren), “cultivation of aesthetic and artistic sentiment” (jôsô kyôiku), “guidance related to the regulation of living environment” (hogo kankyô chôsei shidô) and “therapeutic education” (chiryôteki kyôiku).

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Figure 3: The Central Position of Life Guidance within the Concept of “Corrective Education” in a Juvenile Training School Providing varied experiences Vocational training

Academic training

Object: Learn sound work techniques Contents: Heightening the juveniles’ willingness to work and providing them with the knowledge and work techniques that are necessary for the working life

Object: Heighten the ability to study Contents: Providing a junior or senior high school education which is suited to the needs of every single resident, and an education that provides all residents with the ability to study which is indispensable for social life

Object: Correction of the problem behaviour Contents: Correction of the juveniles’ anti-social way of thinking, behaviour and looking at things, enabling them to have a healthy social life Health education Physical training Object: Healthy mind and body Contents: Restoring and promoting the health of mind, body and spirit

Special Activities Object: Provide emotional experiences Contents: Providing the juveniles with opportunities to perform independent activities, community service activities, external education activities as well as to take part in cultural and sports events

Providing an educative program which is suited to the individual needs of every resident

Source: Mitsuoka 1999: 24.

warm-hearted guidance

relaxed surroundings

Life guidance

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The behavior patterns and value orientations the juveniles are expected to internalize within these six fields of guidance are given to the juveniles in so-called “general” and “personal educational goals.” General educational goals depend on the education course the respective juvenile is assigned to as well as on his/ her actual position in the progressive-stage system. They are supposed to be achieved by every member of the respective course and consist of, for instance, “internalizing basic daily habits,” “heightening the willingness to work and the enthusiasm for one’s work,” “internalizing the correct attitude to work,” “heightening the eagerness to learn,” “recognizing the problematic nature of oneself,” “developing feelings of guilt,” and “developing a feeling of responsibility as an orderly member of society.” (Kimura 1997: 211–212, Hômushô 1998: 248–249). Personal educational goals are usually chosen by the juvenile himself or herself in conversation with the staff member in charge and are all suited to the specific problems a single juvenile shows according to investigations, his/ her criminal record and his/ her actual lifestyle and performance during the educational program. These goals are, for instance, “developing purposefulness,” “developing the right attitude towards sexuality” (Miyashita 1992: 57–58) or, according to the director of the T. Juvenile Training School, “developing feelings of responsibility towards the victim of the delinquent act which has been committed,” “developing willingness and ability to get along well with others,” “developing endurance with regard to vocational training” (see also Johnson 1996: 178). It is continually examined whether the respective goals have been achieved and/or whether they are to be replaced by others, and the juveniles are informed about their achievements in a weekly or monthly “announcement” (kokuchi). The educational goals are registered in the “personal treatment plan” (kobetsuteki shogû keikaku), which is designed as a graduated plan and as such subject to constant adaptation to the actual state of affairs. The importance attached to educational goals, both as a means of clarifying and of fixing the expected value orientations, as well as with regard to their actual achievement, can be derived from the fact that the goals in a way turn up once again in connection with the (conditional) release of the juvenile from training school.4 In the course of 4

A release from juvenile training schools usually is a conditional release: the juveniles are put on parole. Of all juveniles who had been released from training school in 1999, 96.2 % had been released on parole (Hômushô 2000: 170).

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a dismissal procedure, the juvenile is obliged to fill out and sign a form called a “written oath” (seiyakusho). In this oath, the juvenile commits him-or herself to keeping certain conditions; for instance, “I affirm that I will have a steady job, always set myself a goal and lead a law-abiding life.” In conclusion, he or she declares that he/she has no objection to his/her renewed admission to training school if he/she violates the conditions (see Figure 4). The educational goals here appear in the form of a “compulsory commitment”, whose fulfillment is stipulated for returning to and remaining in society. With regard to the central methods by which life guidance is carried through, “educational goals” are supposed to be achieved and behavior patterns and value orientations are meant to be internalized, there are regular meetings between the resident and the staff member who is responsible for direct and continual contacts with him (mensetsu) as well as so-called “reflection essays” (hansei-bun, kansô-bun, wadai-bun), which the juvenile has to write and submit regularly. Here, the juvenile is expected to give his/her comment on subjects such as “Thoughts concerning my offense,” “How I lapsed into crime,” and “What I want to apologize for to my parents” (Tano 1998: 90). In addition, “diary guidance” (nikki shidô) is applied in every training school. Each resident is obliged to fill out a diary every evening concerning his/ her activities, feelings and problems he/ she has thought about or was faced with that day and then hand it over to the staff member who reads it and returns it with comments. The main purpose of the diary guidance lies in forming a strong emotional connection between resident and staff member in charge. Through this emotional tie, the staff member is supposed to be able to effectively foster modifications of the resident’s behavior patterns and attitudes (Okudaira 1997: 30).

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Figure 4:Example of a “Written Oath” the Residents of Juvenile Training Schools Have to Fill out and Sign on their Release Written Oath I. Keeping general conditions 1. I give the assurance that I will have a fixed place of abode and a stable job. 2. I give the assurance that I will carry on with my correction. 3. I give the assurance that I will not associate with delinquent or deviant persons. 4. I give the assurance that I will ask my volunteer probation officer for permission before changing my place of abode or beginning a long-term journey. II. Keeping special conditions 1. I will return to my home address in Tôkyô-to, X-ku, Y-chô, Mr. and Mrs. XY until November 31st, 1997. 2. Until November 31st, 1997 I will appear in person at the Tôkyô Probation office. (The juvenile’s handwriting follows; note of the author): 3. I give the assurance that I will not violate other persons. 4. I give the assurance that I will not continue any association with motorcycle-gangs, not drive without a driving license and not drive a car/motorcycle in a negligent way. 5. I give the assurance that I will keep away from criminal organizations. 6. I am absolutely determined to refrain from alcohol. 7. I give the assurance that I will have a steady job and working sincerely and patiently. 8. I give the assurance that I will meet my volunteer probation officer every month and follow his/ her guidance and advice. Herewith I am permitted to leave the juvenile training school and obliged to be under the authority of the Tôkyô Probation office. I promise to keep the above conditions and make every effort to become an orderly member of society. I have no objection to my renewed admission to the training school in the event of my violation of any of the conditions. (The juvenile’s fingerprint follows; note of the author) November 13th, 1997 Source: Tano 1998: 118.

YZ

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In addition to the above methods used in every training school, many of the institutions practice “self-introspection” (naikan) as well as the writing of “role letters” (rooru retaring, yakuwari kôkan shokan). Naikan is a psychotherapeutic treatment method that is well known and commonly used in Japan. Since the beginning of the 1980s, it has been practiced more and more in juvenile training schools as well. The method is based on one week of intensive reflection during which the resident is supposed to be cut off completely from the normal course of life and from all external stimuli and influences. The self-introspection is guided and supervised by a staff member. He or she chooses the topic of reflection, and the resident is required to tell him/ her at one or two-hour intervals the outcome of his/ her reflection, whereupon the supervisor gives him/ her appropriate advice. The topics of the self-introspection focus mainly on the resident’s relationship to the persons with whom he or she relates most closely. In most cases, these are the parents. The director of the T. Juvenile Training School explains it as follows: “Most of all, the juveniles are asked to think about their relationship with certain persons. If the juvenile, for instance, has a bad relationship with his/ her father, perhaps because has been beaten by him/ her, then he or she is asked to give some thought for one day about the good things he or she received from him or her. At first, the juvenile only remembers the bad times he or she spent with his/ her father; he or she remembers the thrashings he got, and so he or she is convinced that he/ she had never received his/ her father’s affection and care. But slowly he or she begins to realize that this isn’t true. (...). Having spent one week this way, his or her attitude towards the father changes.”

The naikan is closely related to the method of “role letters,” which are also used in many institutions. Similar to naikan, role letters are aimed mainly at influencing the resident with regard to his/her relationship with persons most closely relates to. As an example, the juvenile is asked to mentally occupy the role of his/her father, his/her mother or his/her class teacher and to write letters from their perspective. Role letters are meant “to make the juvenile understand the feelings and points of view of others, to realize that he/she, himself/herself, is responsible for his/her problems, and to deepen insight into his/her inner-life” (Okudaira 1997: 30). On closer examination of subjects of self-introspection and role letters, it becomes clear that the purpose of these methods is primarily to make an emotional impact on the residents as well as to shame

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them for their wrong behavior and attitudes. For instance, in extreme cases the juveniles are asked to write about the following: “Imagine your mother commits suicide because of her deep grief over you and your offense. Write her farewell letter to you!” or “Imagine the victim of your offense is so emotionally hurt that he or she intends to commit suicide. Write his or her farewell note to you starting with the words ‘I accuse’ ” (See Haruguchi 1997: 60–63). Thus, role letters appeal to the resident’s feelings of guilt and shame in a very severe way. He or she is made aware of the most extreme effects of his/her delinquent behavior on his/her social environment that could have occurred solely because of his/her own actions. In this context, role letters and selfintrospection can be assigned to the category of “reintegrate shaming,” a concept that is attributed to the Australian criminologist John Braithwaite. “Reintegrative shaming” describes a model of society and rehabilitation that is based on the moral shaming of the offender. Braithwaite considers Japan to be a typical example of this rehabilitation model, but he fails to offer any proof of his view (see Braithwaite 1989). Clearly, in juvenile training schools the shaming of the residents is carried out in a very “condensed” form. The specific type of self-introspection the juvenile training schools are practicing, however, gives rise to controversy. Critics argue for instance that the focus on appealing to the resident’s feeling of guilt misses the true nature of naikan and role letters. Instead, the sole aim and object of the methods are supposed to lie in discovering oneself (Iwaoka 1997: 20–21). That both methods do not have the desired effect with regard to every resident becomes evident in a talk with the director of T. Juvenile Training School. He stresses that naikan and role letters are only practiced with residents who are interested in this treatment and want to try it and that the treatment is immediately stopped if the resident shows signs of aversion to it, or if he is seen practicing “superficial” reflection. However, the fact that naikan is applied today in about 35 training schools (Iwaoka 1997: 17) shows that generally it is trusted for its positive effects. Besides the aspect of shaming juveniles, there is one more feature that seems to be typical for the kind of moral-normative instruction in the framework of “life-guidance” and that at the same time seems to characterize the very nature of rehabilitation in Japan: by studying written sources, one finds statements and comments by which an ideal image of a rule-abiding, upright juvenile is given. Not only are clear

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ideas expressed about how the juvenile is considered to live from now on, but also how he or she is considered to be: healthy (kenzen), strong (takumashii), persevering (nebari-zuyoku), obedient (sunao), energetic (yaru ki o miseru) and cheerful (akarui) (see Tano 1998: 215; Okudaira 1997: 36; Fujioka 1992: 99). This shows that the attempt of the training schools to influence juveniles with regard to norms and value orientations goes far beyond aspects of merely abiding by the law. The juveniles are not only expected to live without infringing on the law, they are also required to lead an “honest,” “normal,” “ordinary” and “conforming” life (see Tanoue 1998: 93). Above all, the training is aimed at developing their personality (Igarashi 1993: 42) and molding their character. It focuses on the development of the “whole person” modeled after an ideal human being who acts for the benefit of society.

3. Parallels Between the “Corrective education” of Training Schools and Education at School From the features pointed out above, one can see that those Japanese critics are mistaken in arguing that the juvenile training schools are institutions that merely take residents into custody and do not comply with their claim of promoting their education. Quite the reverse is true—the training schools are aimed at a far-reaching education that encompasses a complete style of living and even the shaping of character. They do this with emphatic insistence and some of their methods seem to be extremely rigid. In addition, a western observer who is shaped by ideas like the openness of values or a free and self-determined lifestyle cannot help thinking that the “corrective education” of the training schools goes too far by aiming at intruding too strongly on the personal development of the residents. For someone who is well acquainted with the Japanese education system and with socialization methods used at school, however, it is striking that the education found in training schools is actually nothing but a rigorous continuation of scholastic education. In Japanese schools, particularly in junior high schools, the focus is on not only academic instruction; pedagogical efforts and goals reach far beyond this. For instance, even though the rigid drills of the schools are missing, high importance is attached to discipline, rules and order. This

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can be seen from the detailed school rules or from the highly disciplined and structured way by which school life proceeds. In addition, education in and by the group, as well as the encouragement of social competence through club activities and gyôji (sports and cultural events), is an integral part of the educational curriculum of junior high schools (LeTendre 1996: 278–279). From the education plans of junior high schools, it can be ascertained that lifestyle guida n c e — seikatsu shidô—as well as the related forms “educational/occupational guidance,” “guidance regarding lifestyle and basic daily habits” and “guidance related to problem behavior” (at school the latter is called seito shidô or student guidance) are practiced as well.5 Finally, junior high schools also set up an ideal of a junior high school student. The students are given clear ideas of how to be chûgakusei rashii or how to be “like a junior high school student.” An ideal junior high school student is one who has a well-organized, disciplined lifestyle based on compliance to social norms codified in formal and informal school rules, and who at the same time realizes the importance of study and is eager to learn, who is of a buoyant and cheerful personality and has good manners and a sense of responsibility (Fukuzawa 1996: 304; 312, 318). Thus, junior high schools also have far-reaching educational goals for their students that include solid social integration and social control. Moreover, these include the goal of molding their characters in order to develop the “whole” person (LeTendre 1996: 292; Fukuzawa 1996: 295). Both the educational conception and some of the methods applied in junior high schools and training schools correspond to each other. For example, the filling out of diaries that are submitted to and commented on by the teacher (LeTendre 1996: 276–277); Fukuzawa 1996: 305), “reflection essays” (LeTendre 1996: 279; Fukuzawa 1996: 305; 308) and the principle of regulating behavior not by the teacher but primarily by the peer group (Fukuzawa 1996: 312) are commonly practiced in junior high schools as well. Our own field studies at

5

These findings can be inferred from three education plans from junior high schools of Niigata prefecture. The internal school material had been collected in the course of the research project of the Institute of Japanese Studies at Halle University concerning deviant behaviour of Japanese juveniles in which the author participated as member of the research project team (for the findings of the project see FoljantyJost/Metzler, M. and Metzler, M./Foljanty in this volume).

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Japanese junior high schools6 show that they also operate with “educational goals,” may they be in form of school slogans, class slogans, or personal goals which the students are encouraged to phrase and to paint on posters. In addition, we observed that students who had violated school rules were met with the same reaction that juvenile training school residents confront: an attempt to make an emotional impression on them and to appeal to their feelings of shame to encourage them to recognize their wrongful conduct. Thus with regard to social integration, the juvenile training schools are based on the same educational concept and partly even on similar organization patterns and strategies as junior high schools. This indicates, however, that the educational aims of the training schools, which actually seem to be very far-reaching, are suited to real social conditions. The training schools prepare the residents for reintegration into a society that attaches a very high importance to social rules and to a high degree of informal social control. Consequently, the residents of juvenile training schools are required to learn the same things that make up the goal of socialization at junior high school: the ability to acquire and the orientation towards a rule-abiding, socially competent behavior which enables individuals to adapt to and cope with a tight net of social relations and rules. In spite of the similarity between the educational concept of training schools and junior high schools, there are, of course, considerable differences between the conditions of life in both institutions. This becomes clear if one has, like the author, had the opportunity to gain on-the-spot insight into both institutions. In the course of the research project of the Institute of Japanese Studies at Halle University concerning deviant behavior of Japanese juveniles, the author took part in fieldwork at three junior high schools.7 There, she could observe that the everyday life at school seemed to be characterized by cheerful bustle, and that there was an attempt to let the students practice and internalize the educational content mainly through play-kind methods. In the interviews with the students, almost everyone gave the assurance that they are enjoying school life. Residents of a juvenile training school would hardly make this statement. The atmosphere in the institutions the author has visited 6

See previous footnote and Foljanty-Jost/Metzler, M. and Metzler, M./FoljantyJost, this volume. 7 See footnote 3 and Foljanty-Jost/Metzler, M. and Metzler, M./Foljanty-Jost, this volume.

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was, to express it in a positive way, filled with discipline and concentration. But you could also speak of a depressed, dejected and despondent mood. This is; of course, partly attributed to the character of the training schools as institutions of imprisonment where naturally there is more pressure, control and compulsion that prevails. In addition to this, most of the educational measures in the training schools are carried out in a considerably more severe and rigid way, considering, for instance, the punctiliousness of the rules, the practice of the “reflection meeting” (hansei-shûkai) or the topics of the role letters. Perhaps the most significant difference, however, lies in the fact that in contrast to junior high school students, the residents of juvenile training schools go through the educational curriculum in the knowledge that they are hardly able to escape physically or mentally from it.

4. The Juvenile Training Schools— Shining Example or Terrible Vision? In the face of rising juvenile crime rates, especially in the field of serious and violent crime and rising violence in schools, the Japanese school and educational system as well as the Japanese system of rehabilitation have been exposed to strong public criticism. Whereas with regard to the school and education system the reaction to this criticism consists of liberalization measures such as the relaxation of school rules or the lowering of the number of compulsory lessons, the juvenile training schools showed the opposite reaction: in response to the supposed brutalization of juveniles and their problem behavior a new treatment course was introduced in the autumn of 1997. It is intended for those residents who have committed violent acts and provides, if this can be taken from the official directives concerning the course, even more intensive and emphatic attempts at regulating and controlling the behavior of the juveniles than the previously applied courses. For example, life guidance is expected to be carried through in the form of “guidance to foster repentance and atonement” in order to strongly promote the development of the juvenile’s feelings of guilt. In addition, through even more intensified physical and disciplinary training, the juveniles are expected to internalize a “healthy awareness with regard to norms, compliance to rules and daily habits” (Okudaira 1998: 241–243). From this it follows that training schools functioning as socialization agents toward the most problematic juveniles among

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juvenile law offenders keep a firm hold on their present educational concept. This is not surprising when one takes into consideration that despite public criticism of the training schools their educational concept seems to be remarkably efficient. This can be concluded from the fact that the recidivism rate of former residents of juvenile training schools is amazingly low compared to facilities of other nations. Whereas, for instance, the juvenile prisons in Germany, which can be regarded as the counterparts of the juvenile training schools of Japan with respect to their custodial and educational function and clientele, show a recidivism rate of 70 to 80 percent (Sonnen 1995: 127–128; Breymann et al. 1999: 7), the recidivism rate of former residents of juvenile training schools was only 22.5% in 1999 (Hômushô 2000: 199). This leads to the question of what the remarkable success of the training schools is based on. This question is all the more interesting as in view of the failure of their institutional treatment programs many western industrial countries are in search of promising institutional treatment models. With regard to this question, one has to take into consideration the fact that institutional treatment models which are mainly based on a theory of deterrence or on “educating” residents solely by means of drill and repression, like many of the so-called “boot camp programs” in the United States, have turned out to be complete failures (Gescher 1998, 2000). Hence, it may be presumed that the success of the Japanese training schools lies on the other side of treatment elements which belong to the category of pure discipline and drill-like marching, roll calls or physical training; namely, that they are founded on elements which are more aligned to rehabilitation. As a matter of fact, the author’s survey shows that the repressive elements affecting life in training schools, which catch the eye more than anything else, are only one side of the picture. The other side consists of intensive attempts of the schools to enable juveniles to enter into social relationships, lead sociable lives and reintegrate themselves into society. With regard to the rehabilitative-aligned elements, not only the vocational and academic training courses which have been mentioned briefly at the beginning can be referred to, but also many aspects which have been analyzed in this paper: for instance, the social skill training, the “guidance according to the type of deviation,” the attempt at regulating the residents’ behavior by providing a group-norm culture, or the “shaming” of the juveniles, in which there is an imaginary confrontation with the effects of one’s

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own action on the immediate social environment or the victim of the offence. However, by having a closer look at these aspects, it turns out that this “sunny side of the picture” is more or less densely clouded over. It appears as if the training schools go just one step too far and pursue the measures in a far too extreme way. This means that the repressive element is spread even into the parts of the programthat go beyond the means of mere discipline and drill. For instance, the residents are hardly provided with any opportunity to practice scheduling and structuring leisure and working time on their own. The behavior regulation that is aimed at with the “hot seat” often turns into bullying, digging and wrongly accusing one’s mates and the “shaming” or “reflection” seems not to be free from psychological repression. Finally, even if the specific Japanese socio-cultural background has to be taken into consideration when judging the attempts of the training schools to achieve far-reaching behavior regulation and character corrections, nonetheless one has to take heed of the fact that, unlike in junior high schools, behavior regulation and personality building measures in training schools are carried out under conditions of imprisonment and compulsion. From this point of view, it is debatable whether they intrude on the personality development and personality rights of the residents. If one further takes into account that all rehabilitative measures are embedded in “the dark side of the picture,” namely in an everyday life that is marked by strict discipline, rigidity and drill, one cannot but think that, overall, one is faced with the concept of an “imposed education” or, to put it into the words of Hirschi’s control theory, with the concept of “imposed social bonds.” Hence, it is not surprising that according to reports of former residents, most of them seemed to feel the “program of imposing social bonds” not as education and help but as severe punishment (see Tano 1998: 88– 110). In this respect, from the residents’ point of view, it must appear to them quite absurd that the measure of admitting young offenders to juvenile training schools is criticized by the Japanese mass media and public because of its alleged “gentleness” and that more severe punishment is called for. However, the question remains whether the clear success of the juvenile training schools that follows from the low recidivism rate is founded on this special mixture of repression/drills and education or, to put it into other words, whether repression/drills are indispensable components of the educational concept in order to ensure success.

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This question is at present also under intensive and controversial discussion with regard to the Glen Mills Schools in Pennsylvania, USA. The Glen Mills Schools are an alternative and quite efficient model of institutional treatment for recent juvenile offenders whose educational concept, although regarded as quite unique and innovative, on closer examination seems to have striking similarity to that of Japanese juvenile training schools.8 From the author’s point of view, it would be worth trying to lower the repressive elements within the educational concept and laying stress solely on “education.” If the juvenile training schools reduced the repressive conditions to some extend and practiced their educational measures in a less rigid format, the remarkable intensity and the enormous effort they put into their educational aims would be more effective. These aspects of the educational concept—high intensity and huge effort—can be regarded as the real “sunny side of the picture.” This is because they may give positive signals to the residents despite all the rigidity, drills and compulsion they are faced with. The first signal is that the juvenile is given a real and honest chance to prove him- or herself. The second signal is that he/she deserves this chance after all, meaning that he/she is not permanently bad. The third and perhaps most important signal is that the training school and society have a very deep interest in his/her reintegration. Maybe it is this evident interest that causes most juveniles to show interest in their rehabilitation and refrain from repeating an offence. Thus, the repressive elements of the educational concept do not seem to be a worthwhile model for institutional treatment facilities for other nations. What instead is worth adopting from the juvenile training schools in Japan and from the Japanese way of dealing with young offenders generally is to show every juvenile that society is deeply concerned with his/her reintegration by putting great effort into and by intensively taking care of each of them.

8

For the educational concept of the Glen Mills Schools as well as for the current discussion see Ferrainola 1999, Guder 1999, Vieten-Groß 1997, and Lindenberg 2000: 233–234.

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5. References Ackermann, Peter (1996): Auf der Suche nach der japanischen Einzelperson. (In Search of the Japanese Single Person). Diskussionsbeiträge Erlanger Japanstudien No. 3. Erlangen: Lehrstuhl für Japanologie, Friedrich- Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. Braithwaite, John (1989): Crime, Shame and Reintegration. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Breymann, Klaus et.al. (1999): Magdeburger Initiative. Forum zu Jugend und Kriminalität (Initiative of Magdeburg. Forum concerning Youth and Criminality). DVJJ, No. 163, pp. 4–10. Dünkel, Frieder (1993): Jugendstrafvollzug im internationalen Vergleich (Imprisonment of Juveniles in International Comparison). In: Thomas Trenczek (ed.), Freiheitsentzug bei jungen Straffälligen. Bonn: Forum Verlag Godesberg, pp. 93–113. Ferrainola, C.D. (1999): Zur Notwendigkeit einer effektiven Veränderung stationärer Behandlungsmodelle delinquenter Jugendlicher (About the Necessity of an Effective Change with regard to Models of Institutional Treatment for Juvenile Delinquents). DVJJ, No. 165, pp. 321–324. Fujioka, Atsuko (1992): Nichi-Bei shônen’in no hikaku (A Comparison of American and Japanese Juvenile Training Schools). Hanzai to hikô, Vol. 91, No. 2, pp. 92–108. Fukuzawa, Rebecca Irwin (1996): The Path to Adulthood According to Japanese Middle Schools. In: Thomas P. Rohlen u. Gerald K. LeTendre (eds.), Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 295–320. Gescher, Norbert (1998): Boot-Camp-Programme in den USA—Bestandsaufnahme eines paramilitärischen Sanktionskonzepts (Boot Camp Programs in the United States of America—Stock-Taking of a Paramilitary Concept of Sanctioning. Neue Kriminalpolitik, 3/1998, pp. 18–21. Gescher, Norbert (2000): Boot-Camp-Programme für Jugendliche in den USA (Boot Camp Programs for Juveniles in the United States of America). DVJJ, No. 167, pp. 22–28. Gottfredson, Michael R./Hirschi, Travis (1990): A General Theory of Crime. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Guder, Petra (1999): Glen Mills—amerikanischer Mythos oder reale Chance? (Glen Mills—American Myth or Real Chance?) DVJJ, No. 165, pp. 324–334. Hamai, Kôichi (1997): Amerika ni okeru buuto kyanpu shogû no kokoromi - shônen buuto kampu shogû to nihon no shônen’in shogû to no hikaku o chûshin to shite (The Experiment of the Boot Camp Treatment in the United States—A Comparison of the Treatment of Juveniles in Boot Camps with the Treatment in Japanese Juvenile Training Schools). Keisei, Vol. 108, No. 8, pp. 66–80. Haruguchi, Norio (1997): Yakuwari kôkan shokan-hô (rooru retaringu) no riron to jissai (Theory and Practice of Role-letters). Keisei, Vol. 108, No. 8, pp. 52–65. Hirschi, Travis (1969): Causes of Delinquency. Berkeley: University of California Press.

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Hômushô, Hômu sôgô kenkyû-sho (continuing volumes): Hanzai hakusho (White Paper of Crime). Tôkyô: Ôkurashô Insatsukyoku. Igarashi, Tsuneyuki (1993): Katei saiban-sho kara mita shônen shogû no saikin no jôkyô (The Actual Treatment of Young Offenders in View of the Family Court). Tsumi to batsu, Vol. 30, No. 3, pp. 39–45. Iwaoka, Tadashi (1997): Kyôsei shisetsu ni okeru naikan shidô no kadai (The Task of the Self-Introspection Method in Corrective Institutions). Keisei, Vol. 108, No. 6, pp. 16–24. Johnson, Elmer H. (1996): Japanese Corrections. Managing Convicted Offenders in an Orderly Society. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press. Kaiser, Günther (1993): Kriminologie (Criminology). 9. Auflage. UTB Band 594. Heidelberg: C.F. Müller. Kimura, Kaname (1997): Shônen’in ni okeru kyôiku katei ni kakaru tsûtatsu nado ni tsuite (The Circular Notices Concerning the Educational Curriculum of Juvenile Training Schools). Katei saiban geppô, Vol. 49, No. 3, pp. 202–227. Kinki Bengôshi Rengô-kai, shônen mondai taisaku iin-kai (1999): Shônen’in, jidô jiritsu shien shisetsu o chûshin to suru shônenhô shogû no genjô to kadai (The Actual Situation and Tasks of the Treatment Based on the Juvenile Law With Special Regard to Juvenile Training Schools and Juvenile Institutions for the Promotion of Self-Reliance). Tôkyô: Akashi Shoten. LeTendre, Gerald K (1996): Shidô: The Concept of Guidance. In: Thomas P. Rohlen u. Gerald K. LeTendre (eds.), Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 275–294. Lindenberg, Michael (2000): Wegschliessen—Lösung oder Hilflosigkeit? (Locking Away—Solution or Helplessness?) DVJJ, No. 169, pp. 232–235. Metzler, Anne (1999): Jugendkriminalität in Japan im internationalen Vergleich (Juvenile Delinquency in Japan in International Comparison). Materialien zu Jugend und Devianz in Japan Bd. 8, ed. by Gesine Foljanty-Jost. Halle: MartinLuther-Universität Halle Wittenberg. Metzler, Manuel (1999): Devianz auf Japanisch. Wissenschaftliche Hintergründe des Verständnisses von Norm und Abweichung (Deviance in Japanese. Scientific Backgrounds of the Comprehension of Norm and Deviation). In: Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franz-von-Siebold-Stiftung (ed.), Japanstudien. Jahrbuch des Deutschen Instituts für Japanstudien der Philipp-Franzvon-Siebold-Stiftung, Vol. 11. München: Iudicium Verlag, pp. 165–191. Mitsuoka, Hiromasa (1999): Shônen’in no shokugyô hodô (The Vocational Training in Juvenile Training Schools). Seishônen mondai, Vol. 46, No. 6, pp. 22–27. Miyashita, Tomoyoshi (1992): Joshi shônen no guhan jiken ô kangaeru (Thoughts concerning Cases of Status Offenses of Girls). Hanzai to hikô, No. 94 (1992/11), pp. 46–63. Miyazawa, Kôichi/Kühne, Hans-Heiner (1991): Kriminalität und Kriminalitätsbekämpfung in Japan (Crime and Crime Control in Japan). 2nd edition. Wiesbaden: Bundeskriminalamt. Mizuno, Yasutaka (1995): Shisetsu-nai shogû II: Shônen kyôsei. Shônen’in. (Institutional Treatment, Part 2: The Corrective Education of Juveniles. Juvenile Training Schools). In: Hoshinô, Shûkô; Yonekawa, Shigenobu et. al. (eds.), Hanzaihikô jiten. Tôkyô: Taisei Shuppansha, pp. 529–534.

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Okudaira, Hiromi (1997): Shônen’in ni okeru kyôsei kyôiku no kadai to hatten (Tasks and Development of the Corrective Education in Juvenile Training Schools). Hanzai to hikô, No. 114 (11/1997), pp. 25–43. Okudaira, Hiromi (1998): Seikatsu kunren katei no saibun ni arata ni môkerareta taishôsha no shogû hôshin, shogû naiyô nado ni tsuite (Treatment Guidelines and Treatment Contents Concerning the Juveniles of the Newly Added Branch Within the Life-style Training Course). Katei saiban geppô, Vol. 50, No. 2, pp. 241–243. Rössner, Dieter (1997): Gewalt in Japan und Deutschland: Strukturen und Ansätze zur Gegensteuerung (Violence in Japan and Germany: Characteristics and Attempts for Taking Countermeasures. In: Foljanty-Jost, Gesine/Rössner, Dieter (eds.), Gewalt unter Jugendlichen in Deutschland und Japan—Ursachen und Bekämpfung. Unter Mitarbeit von Britta Bannenberg und Annette Erbe. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 213–220. Sonnen, Bernd-Rüdiger (1995): Straffälligenhilfe für Jugendliche und Heranwachsende (Help for Juvenile and Adolescent Criminal Offenders). In: Cornel, Heinz/Maelicke, Bernd/Sonnen, Bernd Rüdiger (eds.), Handbuch der Resozialisierung (Reference Book of Rehabilitation). Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft, pp. 65–131. Tano, Tetsufumi (1998): Shônen’in ni itte mairimashita! (I Have Been in a Juvenile Training School!). Tôkyô: Kôseido shuppan. Tanoue, Masaru (1998): Shônen’in ni okeru shakai tekiô kunren ni tsuite—shakai fukki shogû no shiten kara no ichi kôsatsu (Notes Concerning the Social Skills Training in Juvenile Training Schools—Looked at from the Standpoint of Fostering the Reintegration into Society). Hanzai to hikô, No. 115 (1998/2), pp. 91–107. Tokuoka, Hideo (1988): The Juvenile Justice Policies and Background Assumptions in Japan. Kansai Daigaku Shakaigakubu kiyô, Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 103–118. Tsubouchi, Kôsuke (1995): Shisetsu-nai shogû II: Shônen kyôsei. Gaisetsu (Institutional Treatment, Part 2: The Corrective Education of Juveniles. An Overview). In: Hoshinô, Shûkô; Yonekawa, Shigenobu et. al. (eds.), Hanzai-hikô jiten (Dictionary of Crime and Deviance). Tôkyô: Taisei Shuppansha, pp. 517–521. Tsuchimochi, Saburô (1989): Shônen’in ni okeru kyôsei kyôiku—40 nen no kaiko to tenbô (The Corrective Education in Juvenile Training Schools. Looking Back on 40 Years). Hanzai to hikô, No. 82 (1989/11), pp. 118–146. Vieten-Groß, Dagmar (1997): Glen Mills Schools—Eine Alternative zum Strafvollzug für straffällige Jugendliche in Amerika (Glen Mills Schools—An Alternative of the Imprisonment of Juvenile Offenders in the United States of America). DVJJ, No. 156, pp. 136–141.

PROBLEM BEHAVIOR AND SOCIAL CONTROL IN JAPAN’S JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS Manuel Metzler and Gesine Foljanty-Jost

1. Introduction The analysis of the actual state of juvenile delinquency (see FoljantyJost/Metzler in this volume) has demonstrated that the intensity of public concern about juvenile behavior does not correspond to reality. To put it in the cautious words of one of the first observers of Japan’s criminal conditions: “Subjective concern with crime is not directly proportional to objective incidence” (Bailey 1976: 9). Because of this discrepancy, we have focused our research on two questions. The first is the question of how society defines and handles problem behavior and prevention. The second is the function of this specific kind of dealing with non-conformity. To explore these questions we have to know how social actors deal with a given behavior in order to understand what is actually regarded as deviant in a given society. We therefore moved from the analysis of nationwide statistical materials to the analysis of social reality by exploring junior high schools.

2. The Design of the Study Junior high schools are the most appropriate types of schools for the analysis of how juvenile behavior is controlled and corrected in Japan for the following reasons: • First, junior high school is a place where nearly all Japanese in the problematic age span between the age of 12 and 15 spend most of their day. Thus, it is at junior high schools that problem behavior is most likely to emerge and indeed statistically junior high schools

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report the highest numbers of deviant behavior among all school types. • Moreover, junior high schools cover the years when children have to qualify for further educational achievement. The schools are expected to offer an overload of examinations, regulations, and control, all of which are regarded as being partly responsible for deviancy, but at the same time the schools are asked to regain control of juvenile behavior through preventive activities and institutional reforms. • Third, the Japanese state’s or at least the Ministry of Education’s political will is reflected in its policy towards junior high schools. Moral guidelines and education plans are designed by the ministry, handed down to the local boards of education, who adjust them to local circumstances and then hand them down to the schools. Junior high schools thus reflect the official rationale for handling deviance in Japan. For our field study, we chose three junior high schools in Niigata prefecture. The prefecture was chosen mainly because of our long-standing relations with teachers in three public schools of Niigata City and its suburbs. This granted relatively free access to all written materials such as school statistics, plans, pamphlets and so on. It paved the way for interviews with the staff, the headmaster and the students, which can not be taken for granted on delicate topics such as delinquency and deviant behavior. All people involved tend to be reluctant to give information to foreigners that is unfavorable to the image of the school and even to the Japanese educational system as a whole. Nevertheless, due to the highly centralized educational system in Japan we can assume that, at least in terms of institutional arrangements, curricula and time-schedules, schools are more or less uniform. What is remarkable in Niigata is only that the rate of advancement to institutions of tertiary education for students there is lower than the national average, indicating low academic achievement. Aside from this, Niigata may be regarded as a typical Japanese regional center with a population of about 500,000. We conducted field research in the years 1998, 1999 and 2000, for about three weeks respectively in order to answer these three questions: What do actors in charge such as school administrators, headmasters and teachers regard as deviant behavior? How do they react to it, and what is their rationale for their reaction?

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• We collected all available data on the size, history and socio-economic background of the schools, as well as information on the degree of deviance and on the schools’ countermeasures such as their education plans (kyôiku keikaku), the students’ guidebooks (techô) and the schools’ own questionnaires and statistics on bullying, violence, non-attendance and so on. To supplement these materials, we conducted about a dozen interviews with headmasters, guidance teachers (shidô kyôkan) and homeroom teachers (tannin sensei). We visited lessons at each school. Finally, we interviewed local education administrators, mostly from the city’s school board. • To provide balance to the school perspective, we decided to do interviews with students and parents as well. In the very beginning of our field studies, in November 1998, we interviewed 42 14-yearolds who were in the middle of exam preparations. We used structured interviews with a prepared list of questions. These lasted between 30 and 60 minutes. All interviews were held in Japanese, and recorded and transcribed for analysis. Furthermore, we interviewed parents—these being seven leaders and active members of the parent-teacher-association. Just as in the teacher and headmaster interviews, we asked about their definitions of and experiences with deviant behavior, and their perception of school countermeasures. For an analysis of the material, we combined two different theoretical models, both of which deal with the question how social actors, especially the school, define and handle deviant behavior. The first model provides us with the concept of social control as one of the major approaches for analyzing deviant behavior (see Peters 1995: 17–38 and others). The concept implies that social control is the attempt of relatively powerful social actors who represent the majority of society to correct behavior that they have previously defined as deviant. This behavior is typically ascribed to a socially weaker minority. In our case, the power of definition obviously lies with the school, the school board, and the ministry of education, and it is imposed on students. In a second step, we had to categorize these control attempts, especially in the context of school. The threefold category system that is used in most German studies of crime and violence prevention (Darge 1998: 237–239, Knopf 1996: 66–67, Heinz 1997: 22–33) proved to be useful. It discerns three stages of prevention according to the time and nature of the behavior to be controlled. The most common terms are primary, secondary and tertiary control, but in many surveys, the

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terms differ widely. To grasp the Japanese case, the terms of structural control, general control, and specific control seemed to be more appropriate to us. 1. The term structural control refers to the organization of school life, characteristics of the educational system and the like. Examples are the daily timetable, ways of evaluating academic performance, or extra-curricular duties and programs. Structural control thus constitutes the organizational framework of behavior. To the degree that this framework provides or even imposes opportunities for inducing conformity, an effect on students can be assumed. If, on the other hand, the framework leaves them much uncontrolled time and space, their opportunities to learn deviant behavior will rise. 2. The term of general control refers to those measures which are explicitly aimed at deviant behavior, and which are carried out before it occurs. All students are addressed equally, regardless of how they behave. Examples consist of the school rules, the headmaster’s appeals for good conduct or the school-wide social service campaigns, such as an anti-bullying campaign in which everybody has to take part. General control may therefore be defined as the “setting of norms” and imposing them on students. 3. The third category is specific control. It is aimed at the correction of deviant behavior after it has occurred. It includes all forms of direct and indirect intervention to correct problematic behavior, and prevention of further reoccurrence. A very typical example would be if the teacher takes a student aside and reprimands him/her for breaking school rules. Speaking of theoretical assumptions, a remark on the empirical evidence must be made here. It lies in the very nature of prevention that totally reliable proof of the exact effects of a certain policy, activity or campaign will never be possible. Social reality will always be too complex to doubtlessly identify effect “A” on behavior “B” of person “C” due to the prevention measure “D”. To say something about the effects of prevention, we will always have to rely on plausibility as well. This means that assumptions from theoretical models that have been empirically tested as far as possible are taken into account to qualify the possible effects of the prevention policy in question. In our case, we draw on some basic assumptions of Sutherland’s theory of differential association (for example, Albrecht 1993): Students who are constantly involved in personal contacts that define only pro-

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social behavior in a positive way, and who are given little opportunity for contacts which define deviance in a positive way, are likely to internalize pro-social behavior as the result of a learning process. Thus, a preventive effect of structural and general control must be expected, although it cannot be expressed in figures.

3. Major Findings

3.1 Structural Control: a Framework of Pro-Social Behavior As mentioned before, structural control means the framework of behavior; it can enhance or reduce the opportunities for learning deviant behavior. We find very similar patterns here in all three schools. This is not surprising since school organization is based on centralist, nationwide plans that have not changed very much in past decades. Current educational reform might bring some change here, and in regard to deviant behavior, this may not be for the better (see Fujita in this volume). For the time being, though, the unison feature with importance for structural control is that Japanese junior high school runs all day long. Students are in school five days a week. At least until this year, they have been spending time at school even on weekends and holidays with highly time-consuming sports and cultural club activities. The daily timetable of nearly every student we interviewed was similar: rising at about six in the morning, having lessons until three or four o’clock in the afternoon, returning home for a bath, watching some television and having supper, and doing some homework in the evening until ten to twelve in the evening. Structural preconditions can thus be characterized as time- and energy-consuming. This alone is not very special since schools in other societies such as France have similar time schedules. The difference is that Japan’s junior high schools are explicitly expected not only to help students achieve high academic performance, but also to provide them with the social skills needed for becoming members of society. Students are engaged in a tight schedule of activities concerning homeroom management, the students’ council, sports, cultural activities and the like. During these activities, they are either under the direct supervision of teachers, or they act in teams with their classmates. Even though there is a discrepancy between

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ideal and reality, the chance of “slipping away” into undesired environments is reduced. The structures of social life are clearly in favour of learning how to behave as a productive member of society. This was reflected in our interviews. Unrelated to their academic performance or their record of deviance—the majority of students basically accept school rules as necessary, attending school as common sense, and describe deviant behavior (furyô) as something very distant from every day lives. 3.2 General Control: Setting of Norms Concerning general control, which is understood to be the setting of norms for all pupils, all three schools express very similar expectations towards students’ behavior in their education plans (kyôiku keikaku). The plans are derived from proposals drawn up by the school board, which in turn follows the instructions of the Ministry of Education. A glance at the post-war history of Japan’s school administration shows that such moral guidelines have been in existence at least since after the war, and they have claimed validity throughout the whole country (Beauchamp 1994: 164–167). In the school plan’s rather abstract language, students are to lead a healthy, happy and socially rich life, everyone being everyone’s friend. They should learn to make judgements independently and have high moral standards, and to develop a strong sense of responsibility. They should study diligently, respect the rules of school life and the individuality of their classmates. So, every student should be proud of belonging to his/her school. These formulas are concretely laid out in the school rules. They advise the students directly or indirectly to keep quiet in class, be on time, refrain from fighting with classmates and never to be absent. Thus, a student who talks during class would be regarded as a person who does not respect his/her classmates since he/she keeps them from following the lesson. Furthermore he/she would be a person who lacks self-standing moral judgement, because he/she ignores the important role of study for refining character. For example, in some music lessons we visited, some boys were constantly imitating some prowrestlers, thus disturbing the lesson very much. The teacher did not tell them to keep quiet, but pointed out that they still have to work on their character, and that they have to suppress their selfishness (wagamama). Everyday behavior and morality are linked closely.

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Formulas such as these are not only written down in education plans, they are put up on every wall as posters, campaign documentation or club advertisements. They are announced during the morning ceremony and in almost any given speech by the headmaster or teachers. Even the students themselves formulate these guidelines in their speeches and mottos or in the student committees’ official meetings. We can say that the students at least superficially accept the proposed —or imposed—norms. As one student put it: “We do not know by heart what this year’s homeroom motto is, but somehow everyone knows the general direction.” The rules of how to behave infiltrate daily school life so intensely that one might almost call them omnipresent. To put it the other way round, anything that does not fit into this absolutely pro-social pattern is automatically defined as deviance. This means that the threshold for deviant behavior is very low, at least compared with Germany. Of course, in both countries open violence and crime will be punished, and private conversation in class will be reprimanded in one way or another. It must be noted, though, those Japanese general control goes far beyond anything we know from German schools. It covers areas that are not regulated in Germany, where moral expectations are not enforced or do not exist at all. Clothing is a familiar example: most German schools prohibit neither hair spray nor dying one’s hair, nor is there any dress code whatsoever. External appearance is seen as a completely private decision, with no moral judgement on it to be made by teachers or any other authority. The strict definitions in Japan of deviant behavior have consequences for the responses to student deviance. They allow the school to intervene against minor offenses at an early stage. To stick with our earlier example: imagine a Japanese girl who dyes her hair, thereby openly violating the rules. Teachers can and will intervene at this early point. The effects of correcting behavior in this context may be assumed as follows: the girl can show her protest without harming anyone and without violating any law. This enables the teacher to demonstrate that rules should be taken seriously but at the same time react in a very soft, reintegrative way. He/she can (and usually will) take the girl aside and talk to her, acting like a concerned father or mother. No scolding or punishments are required at this stage, which de-escalates any possible protest at its very inception.

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3.3 Specific Control: Reaction to Deviance If deviant behavior occurs despite structural and general measures, a reaction is needed. We call this reaction “specific control”. In every school, we observed or heard of practically every form of deviant behavior from wearing forbidden red ribbons in shoes, littering, breaking windows, skipping classes, hitting classmates, throwing an electric organ out of the window, hitting teachers, sniffing gas from a cigarette lighter, even blackmailing and shoplifting. Of course, the schools cannot provide exact data on the level of deviance among their students, but we can say this much: Like everywhere in the world, the harmless forms of deviance are most common. But by international comparison these harmless forms are extremely harmless in Japan. What the three schools usually have to cope with are boys dressed untidily, or girls using hairspray or colored ribbons, or students refusing to attend school. Students do not sweep the floors as they should, talk during the lessons and so on. There are practically no victims at this stage of deviancy. Although we witnessed some problems as well, such as violence between students, these were clearly the exception. The level of deviance is somewhat different between the three schools, but the overall picture is one of well-integrated students who occasionally ignore the everyday school rules. Thus, our observations reflect the national statistics, which basically show the same picture.

4. Countermeasures So, what does school do when such behavior occurs? The findings might be summarized in a hierarchy of countermeasures. 4.1 Reprimands According to the students, minor and frequent violations of school regulations such as sleeping during the lesson or wearing forbidden accessories do not cause any reaction in many cases. Some teachers, though, will reprimand the student openly (chûi suru). Others may talk to the student after the lesson, asking him or her to correct his/her behavior. A survey conducted at one school shows that almost every student has been reprimanded at some time or another. The same surveys show that they accept it as long as they do not assume it to be

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humiliating, unfair or physically violent. In fact, in every school we had evidence or at least some hints that some teachers do hit their students. These occasions were exceptions, however. 4.2 Advice Session The next step in regaining control is the “individual guidance” or “advice” session (kobetsu shidô or sôdan. For some general remarks see LeTendre 1996: 280–281). This may be used when a student has insulted or hit a teacher, if he/she has been bullying his or her classmates or if he or she is caught smoking or stealing. Usually, the homeroom teacher and the guidance teacher will take the student into some isolated room and question him/her about the deed. If the behavior was very harmful, or if he or she shows no remorse or shame, the parents or the headmaster might be called in as well. According to an internal report of a teacher, these sessions can be very hard for all concerned. A passage from his report (the names have been altered, of course) reads: Our student Hamanaka has been caught shoplifting. This time it is only a battery at Lawsons’s, but in his purse, 6,000 Yen have also been found. When his mother is called in to take him home, it is revealed that he had been stealing on about 20 occasions since April: perfume, shampoo, hairspray and so on. In the afternoon, his father appears at the school with a paper bag full of stolen goods. He had phoned before and said that he needed assistance and wanted to talk to me. My colleague Ohara and I meet with him and his son in the school’s meeting room. I tell his son: “Your deed is a violation of the law committed outside school. You will be registered and punished by the police. I am no policeman. I do not want to punish you. Instead, I am deeply troubled about your future.” During my talk, Hamanaka remains seated with a stubborn manner. Finally, his father stands up and slaps him across the face two or three times. Then, Ohara makes him say to whom he gave the rest of the stolen goods. The names of Nakajima, Uno and Nakaya are mentioned. When Ohara makes it clear that they will be questioned as well, student Hamanaka turns pale. “You can put me in jail, but please leave them out of this business”, he says, and reveals that he had been bullied seriously two and a half years ago. “I don’t want to go back to that point”, he cries. But his father insists that all this will never stop if he keeps running away from problems. He is determined that we should “squeeze out the abscess together.” (Teacher K., Kuro-school, translated by the authors)

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From this and many other examples, it seems clear that the “advice” is close to an interrogation. A group of adults urges one (or more) students to admit a mistake. The mistake includes not only the act of breaking rules, but moral offense as well. The students must admit that they have personally failed in developing their character sufficiently. As a consequence, they have to make up for their mistake. Typically, this amounts to compensating for the damage and apologizing to everybody involved. To state one’s regret openly is accepted as a promise to correct one’s own behavior and to follow the school’s regulations in future. Usually, an advice session does not end before the student has agreed to make an apology. It can last for hours and may even take several sessions’ time. All this may well be the reason why students who had been given the “advice” told us that they are very afraid of it, or that they even had wept during the session. 4.3 Formal Punishment The final step in the hierarchy of reactions is the formal punishment of the student. A written reprimand, the compilation of an essay of apology or temporary exclusion from school are examples of such punishments. The headmaster may impose them if students continue to be seriously rebellious or if they have shown brutal violence. But according to the Ministry of Education, only 3.3% of all violent students are subjected to such formal punishments, and most of them are either formally reprimanded or made to write an essay (Shimizu et al. 2000: 71). This corresponds with the explanations of the headmasters we interviewed; they stressed that usually they refrain from punishing students. They explained this reluctance by their mistrust in the pedagogical effect of punishing. Another well-known explanation is the concern about the reputation of the school. The hardest formal punishment would be to hand the case over to the police. This is usually done if teachers or students are viciously assaulted. The figures are very low here. In one school, which had extreme trouble in the mid 1990s, 47 students had been registered between 1992 and 1998, which is a ratio of 1 out of 82.

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5. Some Problems from a Functionalist View Needless to say, this system of social control has its problems as well. However, these problems do not relate to a totally over-regulated, coercive atmosphere of control. Some Japanese authors assume that the school system distorts Japanese youth as a whole, pressing them into absolutely correct behavior (Fukaya 1997: 140). Some western critics talk about several hundred rules, each of which is enforced severely and strictly by brutal or humiliating punishment (Schoolland 1990: 19–38). Our findings do not support these interpretations. The schools examined provided some dozen rules, and none of the students knew even a part of them by heart. Not one of the 42 interviewees had his rule booklet with him or her, although officially each student is absolutely required to do so. Free “grey” zones of behavior are left for slight violations. Many pupils are used to dressing untidily, demonstrating that they are not being corrected each and every time. The cleaning of the classrooms deliberately ends up with students lingering in some corner, chattering with broom and mop in hand, with the teachers simply passing by. In one of the three schools, boys and girls strolled through the floors, hand in hand, without any teacher paying attention. School regulations constitute the normative backbone of general control. They are not ignored, at least not the basic ones, but neither are they enforced violently and blindly. There are “free” zones where students can slightly violate some norms, and teachers do not have to react. Regulations in Japanese junior high schools are detailed and dense, but they are not tools of an overtly suppressive, distorting and inhuman control system. Nevertheless, from a functionalist point of view, there are at least three problematic features. The system seems to lag behind its own goals of social control. Schools construct a surface of harmony and conformity, which makes it difficult to deal with protest potential and the actual deviance beneath that surface. The best example is the shoplifter mentioned in the advice session case: what shocked teachers most was the fact that the thief was the president of the students’ council. This means he held the highest official position a junior high school student can possibly have. His conformist and his delinquent side could peacefully co-exist partially because the school enhances superficial adaptation, such as taking care that everybody wears his uniform in a somewhat similar way and so on. The Japanese concern

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that today’s students go wild without any signs of warning might therefore be explained by the fact that the educational system itself goes to great lengths to hide any possible sign of warning. The school’s reintegrative approach addresses minor cases of deviance. What remains open is whether it works in cases of repeated and serious violations of rules. In cases where students do not accept the goals of the Japanese meritocratic society, that is to proceed to senior high schools, they might become immune to the hidden power of exams, grades and students’ personal records, which are part of structural control. Yonekawa (in this volume) has outlined this problem on the national level: most students who later become delinquents do not show much aspiration to attend senior high school. The junior high school’s system of reintegration is limited to students who are, to a certain degree, already integrated. It remains doubtful the advice sessions and guidance will serve to enhance the student’s abilities of having his/her own moral judgement. He or she is put under severe psychological pressure in which the headmaster and teachers act as an authoritarian moralistic unity. As soon as the student apologizes, he or she is formally forgiven and reintegrated. This means that he/she is led to present him/herself as a dependent child. But especially during the years of puberty, externally induced self-criticism runs the risk of correcting behavior only on the surface. A self-sufficient acceptance of norms might not be reached. If the student is ever left to his/her own devices, with no guidelines from outside, he/she might find it difficult to make any independent moral judgement. Simply put, the system works as long as a framework is given. Without external control, students may have difficulties in finding internalized devices of conflict management.

6. Conclusion The starting point for the exploration of social control in Japanese junior high schools has been the discrepancy between the publicly stated crisis of Japanese youth and the rather low numbers of deviant students. These general findings from the data analysis are supported by our case studies on the school’s micro level. We found a relatively low degree of deviance, combined with relatively high problem awareness and a high density of structural, general and specific control. Control patterns in all three schools rely on principles that have

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been discussed elsewhere (Knopf 1996: 54–63) as preconditions for schools without violence. Japanese junior high schools invest much time and energy in avoiding anonymity at school and the isolation of students. They refrain from a laissez-faire attitude towards students’ behavior and present clear rules to them on how they are expected to behave. Social contacts such as clubs, student committees, class activities and so forth are organized to prevent anonymity and isolation. The bulk of schools’ control measures are designed long before any deviance occurs—they are preventive and not reactive. If problems occur, the reaction is reintegrative and not restrictive. A clear-cut set of rules is constantly and intensely presented to students, but never blindly imposed on them. Thereby over-regulation is avoided. At first glance, school life seems over-regulated, but in everyday life, schools do grant students and teachers space to breathe. We therefore argue that a high degree of sensitivity concerning deviant behavior, combined with strict definitions of what is right and what is wrong, may be the most important means of social control in Japanese junior high schools. The issue of deviance serves to produce problem awareness, or even a feeling of crisis. Be it in the statistics of the Ministry of Education, or in the campaign posters in Niigata’s junior high schools, the problem is constructed and perpetuated to justify permanent control over all students, deviant or not. The issue of deviance thereby effectively serves—maybe unconsciously or by design—as a means of integration. This effect may be considered not a self-fulfilling, but a self-preventing prophecy.

7. References Albrecht, Günther (1993). Jugend, Recht und Kriminalität (Youth, Law, and Crime). In: Krüger, Heinz-Hermann (ed.), Handbuch der Jugendforschung, 2.erweiterte Ausgabe. Opladen: Leske und Budrich. Bayley, David H. (1976): Forces of Order. Police Behaviour in Japan and the United States. Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press. Darge, Kerstin (1998): Gewaltprävention im Kontext von Schulentwicklungsprozessen—eine Pilotstudie (Prevention of Violence in Processes of School Development—a Pilot Study). In: Forschungsgruppe Schulevaluation (ed.): Gewalt als soziales Problem in Schulen. Die Dresdner Studie: Untersuchungsergebnisse und Präventionsstrategien. Opladen: Leske und Budrich, pp. 237–288.

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Fukaya, Masashi (1997): Japanische Jugendliche im internationalen Vergleich— grundlegende Muster und aktuelle Tendenzen (Japanese Youth in International Comparison—Basic Patterns and Current Tendencies). In: Foljanty-Jost, Gesine/ Rössner, Dieter (eds.): Gewalt unter Jugendlichen in Deutschland und Japan: Ursachen und Bekämpfung. Unter Mitarbeit von Britta Bannenberg und Annette Erbe. Baden-Baden: Nomos, pp. 139–150. Heinz, Wolfgang (1997): Kriminalpolitik, Bürger und Kommune (Crime Policy, Citizens and Local Community). In: Kury, Helmut (ed.): Konzepte Kommunaler Kriminalprävention. Freiburg: Max-Planck-Institut für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht, pp. 1–146. Imamura, Akiko (1994): Sensei! Ore no ibasho ga nai: kônai bôryoku, ijime, futôkô to torikunda jissen kiroku (Teacher! I don’t have any place to be: Real Reports about School Violence, Bullying and Truancy). Fukuoka: Asahi Shobô. Knopf, Hartmut (1996): Wider die schulische Gewalt (Against School Violence). In: Knopf, Hartmut (ed.) (1996): Aggressives Verhalten und Gewalt in der Schule. München: Oldenbourg Verlag, pp. 105–152. LeTendre, Gerald (1996): Shidô: The Concept of Guidance. In: Rohlen, Thomas und LeTendre, Gerald (Hg.): Teaching and Learning in Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 275–294. Ogi, Naoki (1996): Ima o ikiru chûkôsei: kokoro no ibasho motomete (Junior and Senior High School Students who Live Today: Demanding a Place to be for the Heart). Tôkyô: Nihon Shojaku. Peters, Helge (1995): Devianz und soziale Kontrolle: Eine Einführung in die Soziologie abweichenden Verhaltens (Deviance and Social Control: an Introduction to Sociology of Deviant Behavior). München: Juventa. Schoolland, Ken (1990): Shogun’s Ghost. The Dark Side of Japanese Education. New York, Westport, London: Bergin & Garvey. Shimizu et al. (eds.) (2000): Kyôiku dêtarando 2000/2001 (A Databook of Educational Statistics, 2000/2001). Tôkyô: Jiji Tsûshinsha. Shiozawa, Katsuo (1996): Chiimu-kei hikô ni mirareru shônen no tokuchô (Specifics of our Youth as seen in the Team Deviance). Keesu kenkyû 249, S. 153–164. Yamazaki, Tetsu (1998): Shônen jiken bukku: ibasho no nai kodomotachi (The Book of Juvenile Incidents: Children without any Place to be). Tôkyô: Shunjûsha.

LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS Annette ERBE was a member of the research project on juvenile deviancy in Japan at Halle University. Gesine FOLJANTY-JOST is a professor of Japanese studies and chair of the research project on juvenile deviancy in Japan at Halle University. Hidenori FUJITA is a professor of educational sociology at Tokyo University. Atsushi KADOWAKI is a professor of education at Tsukuba University. Anne METZLER is a doctorate candidate and was a member of the research project on juvenile deviancy in Japan at Halle University. Manuel METZLER is a senior research fellow at Heidelberg University and was a member of the research project on juvenile deviancy in Japan at Halle University. Masaya MINEI is a professor of education at Senshu University in Tokyo. Yoshiaki NAKANO serves as a professor of psychology at Sophia University in Tokyo. Christian SCHWARZENEGGER is an associate professor of criminal law, criminal procedural law and criminology at Zurich University. Mitsuru TAKI is a senior researcher at the National Institute of Educational Policy Research Japan in Tokyo. Hideo TOKUOKA is a professor of educational sociology at Kyoto University. Chisaki TOYAMA-BIALKE is a senior research fellow at the Center for Excellence of the department of education at Tokyo University.

268 Robert S. YODER is a sociologist and a lecturer at Chuo University in Tokyo. Shigenobu YONEKAWA is a professor in the department of sociology at Shutoku University.

INDEX academic competition 36 achievement tests 51 activities club- 38, 233, 244, 257 collaborative- 217 community learning- 217 educational- 216 extra-curricular- 27, 37, 215 role- 233 traditional- 97 volunteer- 82, 213 advice session 262, 263, 264 aggression 23, 56, 92, 94, 106, 108 apathy 69, 87, 92, 94 approach disciplinary- 148, 149, 168, 170 educational- 148, 149, 166, 168, 170 environmental- 148, 149, 152, 166, 168 neo-institutional- 145 neo-Marxian- 145 neo-Weberian- 145, 150 remedial/therapeutic- 148, 167, 168 attachment 135, 223, 224 Aum Shinrikyô 63 background 21, 65, 66 class- 140 cultural- 41 economic- 117 educational- 118, 119, 120, 121, 126, 127 ordinary- 91 problematic- 91 social- 2, 3, 31, 62, 83, 84 socio-cultural- 248 socio-economic- 1, 255 behavior abnormal- 163 aggressive- 6, 41, 94, 108

anti-social- 143 problem- 1, 2, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 28, 30, 31, 32, 33, 36, 38, 41, 44, 56, 59, 64, 69, 91, 92, 94, 96, 97, 98, 130, 166, 205, 219, 236, 244, 246, 253 student- 26, 34, 39, 66, 166, 204 belief 43, 44, 67, 158, 183, 223, 224 bicycle theft 103 bôryoku 6, 91 - kôi 6, 91 bôsôzoku 136 broken homes 117 bubble economy 63, 82, 83, 84, 158, 159 bullying see also ijime 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 14, 20, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 69, 91, 92, 94, 99, 106, 110, 143, 153, 154, 157, 159, 213, 234, 248, 255, 261 buraku youth 35, 40 carrot-and-stick principle 107 Central Council of Education 63, 212 change educational- 145, 146 socio-cultural- 145, 150 chiiki -no kyôikuryoku 211 child-rearing 23, 156 -pattern 23 chûi suru 260 Chûô Kyôiku Shingikai 212 class discipline 1 classification homes 116 collapse of the classroom 203 colleges junior- 154 special training- 154 commitment 3, 29, 32, 106, 223, 224

270 compulsory- 239 moral- 193 community -development centers 212 local- 163, 166, 212, 215 working-class- 33, 36 comparative studies American-Japanese 32 German-Japanese 32 Japanese-American- 23 compensation 178, 183 competence 84, 88, 97, 98, 206, 207, 211, 212, 213, 215 comprehensive -learning 88, 165 -studies 155, 203 conformity 3, 4, 13, 15, 59, 130, 136, 140, 169, 193, 223, 256, 263 control adult- 131 agents of- 8 crime- 130, 181, 183, 184 formal- 113 general- 256, 257, 258, 259, 263 -patterns 264 social- 4, 105, 107, 113, 129, 141, 221, 222, 223, 244, 245, 255, 263, 264, 265 specific- 256, 260, 264 structural- 256, 257, 264 counseling 208 counselors 27, 167, 199, 203, 204, 206, 207, 208 court criminal- 182, 193 District- 178, 191 Family- 8, 11, 12, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 185, 186, 191, 192 High- 178, 180, 181, 182, 192 Supreme- 178, 181, 182, 189 creativity 157, 159 crime -rate 19, 20, 30, 41, 42, 112, 130, 184, 193, 221, 246 serious- 103, 157, 165, 182 youth- 53, 65, 70, 129, 130, 140, 183 criminal investigations 168

INDEX culture consumption-oriented- 167 counter-school- 135, 136, 139, 140 curriculum guidelines 153, 155, 156, 165 dame ningen 127 definitions 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 255, 259, 265 delinquency definition of- 144 juvenile- 2, 8, 9, 13, 19, 43, 51, 112, 115, 116, 117, 118, 120, 121, 127, 129, 135, 139, 143, 144, 146, 147, 152, 165, 166, 181, 183, 184, 186, 207, 211, 214, 216, 253 pre- 129, 130, 131, 139 statistics of- 144 depression 88, 92, 94 de-schooling 218 Doi Takeo 64 dropouts 121, 122, 127, 153 education academic- 155 board of- 61, 212 compulsory- 6, 8, 55 corrective- 222, 236, 243 elementary- 154 emotional- 143, 161 imposed- 248 Law of- 153 local boards of- 6, 62, 254 moral- 57, 164, 165, 203 -plans 244, 254, 255, 258, 259 -programs 167 regulated- 59 secondary- 154 -system 4, 14, 51, 55, 57, 59, 62, 64, 69, 145, 153, 154, 165, 205, 243, 246 therapeutic- 236 university- 150, 164 vocational- 155 educational -achievement 31, 34, 42, 43, 254 -administration 62, 156, 164, 165, 212 -competence 2

INDEX -competition 66 -critics 156, 157, 158 -efficiency 157 -environment 165 -expansion 43, 145, 150 -goals 28, 29, 30, 238, 239, 244 -methods 229 -opportunities 32, 84, 147, 160, 161, 164, 166 -performance 2 -quality 132, 157 -services 167 -topics 52 -vision 164 egalitarianism 59, 63, 64 Emile Durkheim 143 entrance examinations 36, 153, 154, 158, 159 equity 169 families non-father- 118 non-mother- 118 non-two-parent- 116, 117, 120, 124 three-generation- 118 upper middle class- 130 family background 1, 31, 32, 34, 35, 37, 44, 127, 132, 135, 137, 138, 233 freeter 83 Fukuzawa 24, 28, 244 furyô 5, 258 futôkô 6, 91 gakkyû hôkai 1 gakureki shakai 3 gakushu shidô 205 generalization 2, 115, 116, 117 German Criminal Lawyer’s Association 192 Glen Mills Schools 249 Great Britain 13, 19 guhan 5 guidance -curriculum 207 diary- 239 individual- 261 school- 205 student- 26, 55, 57, 66, 205, 207, 208, 244

271 -teachers 255 guidelines moral- 258 gyôji 233, 244 han 24, 144, 190, 254 hansei-shûkai 229, 234, 246 Hanshin earthquake 63 harmful tendencies 5 harmony model 130 hensachi 133 hogo kansatsu 176 homeroom teachers 207, 255 homicide 1, 5, 10, 13, 19, 182, 189, 191, 192, 194, 221, 223 hot-rodders 152 human rights 59, 63, 64, 65, 169, 217 ijime 6, 56, 62, 91 ijimekko 56 ijimerarekko 56 illegal use of bicycles 11 imprisonment 177, 190, 191, 246, 248 incident 162, 163 individuality 44, 59, 64, 66, 157, 158, 258 inferiority complex 40, 42 International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement 154 involvement 27, 96, 105, 223, 224 ippanka 2 Ishihara Shintaro 65 Japan Federation of Bar Associations 186 Japan Parents & Citizens Association For Education 213 Japan Teachers Union 213 Japanese Peer Support Program 96, 97, 98 Japanese triangle 21, 22, 28, 30, 31, 32 jiko keikaku gakushû 230 John Braithwaite 242 juku 133, 135 junior college 119, 120, 121, 123, 124, 125, 126, 154 justice 106, 112, 148, 168, 178, 180, 182, 184, 186, 189, 190, 192 criminal- 185, 194

272 juvenile arrests 129 juvenile correction center 176, 177 Juvenile Law 185, 186, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194 -Committee 190 juvenile offenders 19, 177, 182, 186, 189, 192, 222, 249 Kaigi Gakkô Kyôiku Suishin- 218 Kanagawa prefecture 131 Kaneko 37 kanri kyôiku 59 katsudô kurabu- 233 tokubetsu- 233 yakuwari- 233 Kawasaki City 211, 216, 217, 218 kireru 1, 2, 162 Kobe City 143 kobetsu shidô 261 kobetsuteki shogû keikaku 238 kôsoku 6 Kudomi 34, 44 Kuroiso City 143, 162 kyôakuhan 189 kyôiku -keikaku 255, 258 kyôsei kyôiku 222 larceny 19, 20, 186 Law Child Welfare- 177, 182 Fundamental Education- 164 Juvenile- 4, 143, 161, 162, 165, 167, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 221 Juvenile Correction Center- 177 Juvenile Public Protection- 5 School Education- 154, 163, 165 Lawrence Kohlberg 107 learning -activities 24, 214 experimental- 214 Legislative Council’s Juvenile Law Committee 190 Liberal Democratic Party 190 life guidance 26, 36, 37, 236, 239, 246 lifestyle diary 24

INDEX local communication networks 211 Local Conference for Education 216, 218 Management and Coordination Agency 76, 85, 118, 161 mass media influence 182, 183 Matsui Iwane 213 Matsumoto Ken’ichi 65 Meiji Restoration 153 mental disorder 163 meritocratic society 36, 66, 264 Michael Walter 192 middle-class -orientation 4 middle-class culture 34 Ministry -of Justice 189 of Education 60 -of Education 6, 8, 56, 57, 59, 60, 62, 63, 64, 65, 69, 88, 91, 122, 153, 163, 164, 205, 254, 258, 262, 265 -of Justice 2, 7, 59, 181, 189, 234 misbehavior 24, 25, 33, 37, 40, 52, 108, 129, 130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 139, 140 rate of- 134 self-reported- 134 model educational- 204 guidance- 205 program- 204, 205, 207, 208 service- 204 therapy 204 therapy- 208 Monbukagakushô see Ministry of Education 205 moral judgement 258, 259, 264 moral panic 15, 43, 44, 53, 60, 61, 110, 112 motorcycle gangs 5, 40, 41, 55, 136, 152 naikan 241 Nakasone 59 National Congress of Parents and Teachers Association of Japan 213 National Council of Education 153, 163

INDEX National Council of Education Reform (NCER) 163 National Institute for Educational Research 92 National Police Agency 115, 182 National Standards for School Counseling Programs 208 neighborhood associations 216, 217 New Conservative Party 190 New Komeito 190 Niigata City 254 Niigata prefecture 244, 254 Nikkyôso 57, 59, 62 Nishibe Susumu 65 Nishio Kanji 65 norms 4, 6, 7, 22, 24, 28, 29, 30, 36, 42, 43, 57, 69, 81, 131, 193, 234, 243, 244, 246, 256, 258, 259, 263, 264 adult- 22, 26, 28, 30, 42, 43 legal- 4, 193 Oda Susumu 65 Oedipus 113 offenses juvenile- 13, 19 minor- 53, 130, 259 pre-delinquent- 131 status- 5, 129 Okuda Mikio 62 omoiyari 66 orientation cooperative- 149 decent-society- 88 new life-value- 86 socio-cultural- 169 Osaka Prefectural Board of Education 214 Osaka Prefecture 193 out-of-school patrol 214 over-regulation 108 parasite single 83, 84, 87 patterns of mothering 23 Penal Code 129 penalty 160, 168, 177, 190, 191 plan personal treatment- 238 Rainbow- 163, 164 policy educational- 20, 21, 152, 160

273 policy discourse 165, 167 post-baby-boomer generation 193 Prime Minister’s Office 63, 161, 184 privatization 2, 84, 156, 158, 166 problem educational- 56, 57, 65, 150, 161 juvenile- 150, 161 program boot camp- 247 educational- 148, 152, 169, 204, 230, 234, 238 institutional treatment- 247 mental health care- 169 -of imposing social bonds 248 prophecy self-fulfilling- 113 self-preventing- 265 psychological repression 248 PTA 207, 213, 217 public opinion 37, 103, 111, 183, 184, 194 public prosecutor 178, 180, 181, 183, 185, 190, 191, 192 Public Prosecutor’s Office 177, 181 punishment 25, 33, 37, 69, 131, 137, 167, 183, 184, 191, 193, 221, 248, 262, 263 corporal- 55, 57 Pygmalion-effect 34 recidivism 189, 247, 248 reflection -essays 233, 239, 244 -meetings 229, 234 reform educational- 64, 129, 141, 143, 144, 146, 147, 149, 157, 159, 160, 162, 163, 168, 169, 203, 257 first- 153 -movement 146, 147, 154, 156, 158, 160, 181 -plan 163, 167 -policies 164, 165, 166, 167 second- 153 -supremacy 158, 159, 168 third major educational- 153, 154 rehabilitation 107, 204, 223, 225, 242, 246, 247, 249 reintegrate shaming 242

274 relationship boy-girl- 29, 43 empathic- 23 empathic human- 27 family-school- 22, 27 interactive- 97 interpersonal- 206 reprimands 256 resources physical- 206 spiritual and religous- 206 Rinkyôshin 59 Riyadh Guidelines 180, 211 Robert Merton 113 role letters 241, 242, 246 Saga Prefecture 190 Saitama Prefecture 162 Sakakibara 160, 162, 163, 168 satisfaction 78, 79, 82 school -boards 199 -choice 155, 159, 164, 165 -climate 159, 166 -counselor 155, 161, 199, 203, 204, 208 -culture 33, 39, 44, 153 -disorder 154, 157, 160, 162, 165, 168 -education 24, 57, 150, 155, 161, 163, 165, 169, 205, 214, 215, 218, 219 -failures 140 five-day- 215 German- 27, 259 high- 6, 7, 9, 14, 24, 25, 26, 29, 36, 38, 39, 52, 55, 59, 69, 83, 88, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122, 123, 124, 126, 127, 129, 132, 133, 134, 135, 136, 137, 138, 140, 141, 143, 150, 152, 153, 154, 155, 158, 161, 162, 163, 164, 182, 184, 199, 203, 213, 214, 218, 221, 223, 244, 245, 246, 253, 254, 257, 263, 264, 265 integrated senior high- 155 junior high- 2, 4, 9, 14, 24, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 38, 91, 92, 152, 199,

INDEX 216, 243, 244, 245, 248, 253, 254, 257, 263, 264, 265 Juvenile Training- 222, 223, 224, 225, 229, 230, 233, 234, 235, 238, 241, 242, 243, 245, 246, 247, 248, 249 -life in 64, 166 magnet- 155 -management 156, 158, 164, 165, 166 part-time- 199, 203, 207, 208 -pathology 153, 203, 205 -phobia 153 pre- 25 preparatory- 135 -psychologist 155, 204 -regulations 6, 260 -stress 162, 205 stress-breeding- 163 training- 116, 223, 224, 225, 229, 230, 233, 235, 236, 238, 243, 244, 246, 247, 248, 249 -uniform 137, 140, 141 -week system 215 school rules 26, 29, 44, 55, 57, 136, 153, 158, 244, 245, 246, 256, 258, 260 school system neighborhood-assigned- 203 schooling excess- 162 marketization- 170 Second Research Committee of the Educational System 213 seikatsu shidô 26, 236, 244 seito shidô 26, 205, 244 seiyakusho 239 self-evaluation 214 self-introspection 241, 242 shakaijin 235 shidô hogo kankyô chôsei- 236 -kyôkan 255 mondai gunbetsu- 233 mondai kôdô 236 nikki- 239 shinro- 236 shinsotsu mushoku 83 shônen 116, 176, 222

INDEX shônen kanbetsu-sho 116 shônenhô 4 shoplifting 11, 19, 20, 53, 103, 104, 260, 261 social competence 1, 2, 82, 83, 84, 88, 244 social mobility 138 social phenomena 83, 84, 85, 87 social reproduction 43, 44, 130, 137, 140 social strata 21, 31, 32, 33, 34, 36, 37, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 society meritocratic- 36, 66, 264 South Korea 13, 19, 76, 77 special training 123, 154 standards international human rights- 194 Stanley Cohen 110 Statistics Welfare- 117 status socioeconomic- 31, 32 stress -feelings 92 physical- 92, 94 -types of 92, 93, 94, 95, 98 suicides 60, 61, 110 support community-based- 165, 211 Survey Japan Youth- 76 Second Japan Youth- 85 Tokyo Youth- 75, 79, 81 World Youth- 76, 79 system counseling- 199, 203, 204, 207, 208 educational- 44, 45, 133, 137, 139, 140, 145, 146, 246, 254, 256, 264 educational tracking- 132 high school rating- 133 Juvenile Justice and Rehabilitation- 221 legal- 168 progressive-stage- 229, 238 school counseling- 207, 208

275 tannin sensei 255 techô 255 theory cognitive development- 107 conflict labeling- 130 control- 223 frustration-aggression- 108 labeling- 113 learning- 107 Tochigi Prefecture 162 Tokyo Metropolitan City 84 training social skills- 97, 234, 235 Travis Hirschi 223 UN -Convention on the Rights of the Child 218 -Guidelines for the Prevention of Juvenile Delinquency 211 uniformity 59, 63, 64, 169 values 3, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 39, 42, 43, 44, 52, 57, 65, 66, 69, 75, 81, 82, 85, 86, 87, 110, 135, 141, 144, 166, 194, 205, 218, 243 loss of- 1 vandalism 11, 40, 152, 153, 154, 157 violence -against teachers 152 anti-social- 106 -in the family 20 inter-school- 106 intra-school- 106 oedipal- 106 school- 20, 51, 56, 69, 106, 108, 129, 152, 153, 203 wagamama 258 Watanabe Shôichi 64 White Paper -on Crime 103 written oath 239 Yamada Masahiro 83 Yamagata prefecture 182 Yamagata-Case 189 youth -in crisis 52, 70 zest for living 214