Nature and correlates of Ijime—Bullying in Japanese middle school

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International Journal of

Educational Research 41 (2004) 216–236

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Nature and correlates of Ijime—Bullying inJapanese middle school

Motoko Akiba�

Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis, University of Missouri, Columbia, 202 Hill Hall,

Columbia, MO 65211-2190, USA

Abstract

While school bullying in Japan, Ijime, has been a topic of major public concern since the

1980s, few qualitative studies have been conducted to examine its nature and correlates.

Through a case study of 30 ninth graders in a Japanese middle school, the study found that

Ijime has complex group dynamics in its onset and process. The analysis of student and

teacher explanations concerning Ijime experiences also revealed that Japanese classroom

community, which worked as a social control organization in the past, has weakened, leading

to the prevalence of classroom-based Ijime. The lack of trusting relationships in peer groups

also contributes to the further isolation of Ijime victims.

r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction

Despite the low rates of juvenile crimes and delinquency in Japan compared to theUS and other Western countries (Lewis, 1995; Zeng & LeTendre, 1999), schoolbullying in Japanese middle schools, Ijime, has continuously been one of the mostserious educational and social problems in Japan. Although the officially reportedrates of Ijime have declined over the past years (Somucho, 2000), researchers haveargued that the hidden nature of Ijime cannot be accurately measured by such

see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

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M. Akiba / Int. J. Educ. Res. 41 (2004) 216–236 217

school-reported statistics (Fukuzawa & LeTendre, 2001; Morita, Taki, Hata,Hoshino, & Wakai, 2001; Okano & Tsuchiya, 1999). A recent increase in juvenilecrime rates since 1996 especially among 14–17-year-olds, has also led to furtherconcerns among Japanese educators over the seriousness of Ijime occurring inschools (Ministry of Justice, 1999).However, few studies are available that have systematically examined through

students’ perspectives the nature of and the factors associated with Ijime. Theobjectives of this study are threefold: (1) to examine the nature of Ijime, includingthe concept of Ijime among students, and types and duration of Ijime, (2) toinvestigate student explanations of reasons for their involvement in Ijime and (3) toseek the factors associated with Ijime based on student and teacher discourse. Thisstudy is based on a case study conducted during 2000 of 30 ninth-grade students andtheir (pastoral) homeroom teacher in a Japanese middle school. One classroom withthe 30 ninth-graders was chosen as the focus of this study because most Ijime arereported to occur among the students in the same homeroom (Morita & Kiyonaga,1996; Takekawa, 1993). Through participant observations as a part-time teacher, in-depth interviews with students and their homeroom teacher, and reading excerptsfrom students’ diaries, the author investigated their daily experiences andperceptions of Ijime.Given the traditional role of a classroom community to solve students’ problem

behaviors by integrating the Ijime perpetrators into the classroom community asimportant community members, rather than excluding or punishing them(Fukuzawa & LeTendre, 2001; LeTendre, 1994, 1995, 2000; Lewis, 1995; Peak,1991), a special attention was given to how the homeroom led by the homeroomteacher deals with Ijime cases.

2. Background

2.1. Ijime—its cultural implications

Ijime is a Japanese word that means bullying and interpersonal violence. Zeng andLeTendre (1999) reported that Japanese students define Ijime based on whethervictims perceived a certain action as Ijime. A national survey conducted by theMinistry of Education and Science (2004) has reported that most types of Ijimeinvolve ostracism from peer groups and verbal abuse. While these types of Ijime maybe considered minor offenses in general public, researchers have argued that thesecan be serious threats to Japanese students (Crystal, 1994; Maniwa, 1990). Crystal(1994) explained that in a collective society like Japan where group membership iscrucial for social survival, the ostracism inflicted by the shikato (complete exclusion)style of bullying represents a particularly mean and cruel form of punishment.Maniwa (1990) stated that isolated individuals feel as if the central core of their beingwere degraded or lost as a result of the exclusion.Research on gender differences in the nature of Ijime has revealed that girls are

more likely to engage in ostracism than boys, that boys are more likely to engage in

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M. Akiba / Int. J. Educ. Res. 41 (2004) 216–236218

physical violence and violent threats than girls (Morita, Soeda, Soeda, & Taki, 1999,2001). Sex-based harassment as a form of bullying that is common in UnitedKingdom (Duncan, 1999; Mac An Ghaill, 1994), Australia (Kenway & Fitzclarence,1997; Kenway, Willis, Blackmore, & Rennie, 1998), and the US (Craig, Pepler,Connolly, & Henderson, 2001; Pellegrini, 2001) has not been identified as a form ofIjime in the past research. However, it may be a result of lack of research focus onthis important issue in the past. Sex-based harassment includes both boy-to-girlharassment such as sexualized name-calling and sexual assault and same-sexharassment such as verbal and physical abuse targeted at those identified as ‘‘gay’’(Duncan, 1999). The existence of these types of harassment as well as the genderdifferences in the types of Ijime need to be examined in the context of Japaneseschools.Ijime has been a major topic of public concern since the 1980s in Japan. After a

series of media attentions on student suicide cases as a result of Ijime andfollowing law suits against the city and bullies’ parents during the 1980s and 1990s(Ministry of Justice, 1995), the Ministry of Education (1994, 1995) has issuedmultiple requests to the schools to deal with Ijime. Based mainly on the publicopinions without empirical evidence that Ijime and Futoko (school refusalsyndrome—another major issue of growing concern) are results of severe academiccompetition over high-stakes standardized entrance examinations to senior highschools (grade 10–12), the educational reforms during 1990s and 2000s have hadtheir focus on reducing academic pressure on students. Three major reforms thathave been implemented are (1) reduction of curriculum contents and school days, (2)prohibiting the schools’ use of private practice tests to prepare students for theentrance examinations, and (3) the establishment of grades 7–12 comprehensiveschools to eliminate the entrance examinations, and all of these reforms aimed atreducing the problems such as Ijime and Futoko by alleviating academic pressureson students.A national survey on Ijime conducted during 1994–1995 reported that 26 percent

of elementary students and 20 percent of middle school students had been aggressorsin Ijime during the previous 9 months (Morita et al., 1999). Sixty-five percent ofIjime took place during class break and 20 percent on the school grounds afterschool; thus only 15 percent of Ijime occurs outside school according to this nationalsurvey (Morita et al., 1999). Therefore, Ijime is a problem predominantly occurringat school, not on the street in Japan.Another survey conducted by Morita and Kiyonaga (1996) has revealed the nature

of ostracism-type Ijime by focusing on group dynamics in the classroom. Havingsurveyed 40 classes in sixth and eighth grades in Tokyo and Osaka, Morita andKiyonaga found the existence of four kinds of roles students take in an Ijimesituation: ‘‘victims,’’ ‘‘bullies,’’ ‘‘audiences,’’ and ‘‘bystanders.’’ ‘‘Audiences’’ are thestudents who support bullies by making fun of the victims. ‘‘Bystanders’’ are thestudents who just observe, yet do not usually stop the Ijime. Morita and Kiyonagadisclosed the crucial roles of ‘‘audiences’’ in escalating the seriousness of Ijime byshowing a stronger correlation between the number of audiences and victims thanthe correlation between the number of Ijime perpetrators and victims.

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Another characteristic of Ijime was investigated through research on students’justification of Ijime. Based on a survey of 100 students aged 12–14 in two middleschools, Hara (2002) found that majority of the students blamed the victims andjustified the acts of bullying. However, the extent of blame varied by their role inbullying situations and by gender. Bullies were most likely to blame the victimsamong all the students, and boys were more likely than girls to blame the victims.Girls, on the other hand, were more likely than boys to deny that victims get hurt bybullying.

2.2. Classroom community and Ijime

One question regarding the Ijime phenomenon is Ijime’s relationship withclassroom function. The special characteristics of Japanese classrooms have been afocus of research among ethnographers (Fukuzawa & LeTendre, 2001; LeTendre,1994, 1995, 2000; Lewis, 1995; Peak, 1991). They have found that homeroomteachers take the major role in providing guidance in emotional and socialdevelopment in addition to academic development (Fukuzawa & LeTendre, 2001;LeTendre, 1994, 1995, 2000). When a student engages in a problem behavior such asviolence or vandalism, either at home or school, the homeroom teacher will benotified first. The homeroom teacher then discusses the problem with the whole classand seeks group decisions on how to solve the problem as a class. This is based onthe cultural assumption that a problem behavior emerges as a result of detachmentfrom the homeroom, and the belief of Japanese teachers in general that a classroomas a group can most effectively deal with a student problem (LeTendre, 2000; Lewis,1995). When a problem is serious and the homeroom teacher judges that it is beyondthe classroom’s ability to solve, the teacher brings the issue to a grade committee orstudent guidance committee composed of homeroom and classroom teachers(Fukuzawa & LeTendre, 2001).Historically, Japanese teachers have solved most student problems inside school

relying on this support system among students and teachers. However, theappearance of more serious problems, such as school refusal syndrome (Futouko),a phenomenon that has rapidly spread since the 1990s, has forced homeroomteachers and schools to use specialists, including school counselors (Fukuzawa &LeTendre, 2001). Serious cases of Ijime that are usually hidden from adults’ eyes maybe another problem that challenges the traditional system in dealing with studentproblem behaviors. What we do not know is how the classroom led by thehomeroom teacher deals with Ijime cases and how students perceive the role of theclassroom in dealing with Ijime cases.

2.3. Correlates of Ijime

Japanese researchers have discussed various causal factors of Ijime. Character-istics such as the collective nature of Ijime and its ‘‘invisibility’’ to adults have beenlinked to school features such as high levels of social homogeneity, limited physicalspace that may cause students’ stress, and competition-oriented curricular goals

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(Morita & Kiyonaga, 1996; Sugeno, 1995; Takekawa, 1993). They have also linkedsome types of Ijime to the influence of mass media (Inamura & Saito, 1995) and a newculture of cynicism that ridicules students with traditional hard-working values(Sengoku, 1995). Also, it is argued that privatization (individualism) along witheconomic changes in the society have collapsed traditional Japanese communities. Thishas led to the weakening of traditional social controls that have restricted adolescentdelinquent behaviors in the past (Morita & Kiyonaga, 1996; Takekawa, 1993).Based on a summary of the discourse on school factors related with Ijime,

Yoneyama and Naito (2003) argued that academic pressure and a perception of thefutility of study, power-dominant teacher–student relationship, classroom manage-ment that emphasizes conformity and group cohesion, and the organization ofschool that confines students into a homeroom lead students to bully others inJapanese schools. They emphasized that the negative impact of these schoolcharacteristics explain the nature of Ijime; classroom-based bullying, a central role ofgroup dynamics, and involvement of non-problem students in bullying. However,their arguments were mainly based on the theoretical explanations due to the lack ofempirical research on Ijime conducted in school settings.Ethnographers in the US also addressed the issue of Ijime as well as Futouko as a

part of their ethnographic work and presented their insights into Ijime phenomenonand its possible causes. For example, based on an ethnographic study of studentguidance by Japanese middle school teachers, LeTendre observed that teachers’reliance on senior-class students to supervise juniors in club activities without teachersupervision can lead to Ijime cases (LeTendre, 1994). Also, Lewis warned that heavyreliance on peer control of student problem behaviors without teacher control mightprovide a foundation for later Ijime (Lewis, 1995). Fukuzawa and LeTendre argued,based on their years of ethnographic studies, that these phenomena are more likelyto be influenced by changes in the family structure, the reduction of school timedevoted for students’ social development, increasing significance of social class, andthe movement toward a Western style of adolescence (Fukuzawa & LeTendre, 2001;see also Zeng & LeTendre, 1998).In sum, while some ethnographic work has been conducted in the subject of

student guidance in Japanese middle schools, there are few ethnographic studies thatexamined Ijime from students’ perspectives. While this study cannot identify thecauses of Ijime because the data are limited to student and teacher discourse, theauthor seeks the potential factors that are associated with the prevalence of Ijimesince the 1980s.

3. Methods

3.1. Research site and sample

Choosing a site where a researcher can build a trusting relationship with students isimportant in order to collect reliable data for the study (Marshall & Rossman, 1999).With consent from the principal to conduct the study, 30 ninth-grade students and their

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homeroom teacher, Mr. Suzuki in Haruno Middle School1 were chosen as theparticipants. The author has a long-standing professional relationship with Mr. Suzuki,which led to his support of this research to choose his students as the participants.Haruno Middle School is located in a suburb of an industrial city located 2 h

northeast of Tokyo. The school has 345 students from grade 7 through 9. Ninety-nine percent of the students at Haruno Middle School advance to high schools everyyear, as do most middle school students in Japan. This school has average students’academic performance in the district. Under the highly centralized educationalsystem in Japan, all public middle schools follow the national curriculum, usingtextbooks accredited by the Ministry of Education and Science. Therefore, minimalvariations exist between schools at the organizational level. Following the directionsof the Ministry of Education and Science, Haruno Middle School has paid a specialattention to the cases of Ijime along with Futuko. The importance of teacher–studentcommunication was stressed and teachers were encouraged to discuss difficult issueswith the grade committee and/or the student guidance committee. Also, a survey ofstudents to understand the rates of Ijime has been conducted from time to time. Ijimeprevention programs that are common in Europe and the US are not available toJapanese schools, simply due to the fact that Japanese schools have historically dealtwith student problems using classroom and school functions as described above.Therefore, no Japanese teachers expressed the needs for such prevention programs indealing with Ijime cases.Supporting the ninth graders for their academic success in the high-school

entrance examinations they need to take at the end of the year is the major academicgoal in Haruno Middle School just like any other middle schools in Japan. It iscrucial for the students to focus on their study rather than on leisure or dating. Theincreasing amount of time for before-school and after-school extra study sessions isdevoted towards the end of the year, and teachers spend extra time to provideguidance on studying and future directions in relation to students’ personal andoccupational goals. While Ijime is a problem for Haruno Middle School, teachersdid not consider the problem to be the major hindrance for their study and academicsuccess because it is an issue every school is dealing with.It is reported that Ijime occurs among classmates most of the time (Morita &

Kiyonaga, 1996; Takekawa, 1993). Based on such characteristics, the author choseone ninth-grade classroom in a Japanese public middle school as the field site. Oneninth-grade classroom was the focus of this study because the participants couldspeak of their past experiences involving Ijime throughout their middle school years,including seventh and eighth grades, the grades with the highest rates of Ijime(Ministry of Education and Science, 2004). The ninth-grade class has 14 males and16 females. All the students hope to advance to high school. Thus, the focus groupcan be considered a typical group of ninth-graders in Japan in areas with similargeographical characteristics.The homeroom teacher of this class, Mr. Suzuki, is an enthusiastic teacher who

teaches English to five classrooms, including his own homeroom. It was his sixth

1The names of the school, the teacher and the students have been changed to conceal their identities.

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year of his teaching career, and Haruno Middle School is the only school where hehas ever taught. He has a trusting relationship with other teachers, who havesupported him in dealing with Ijime and other student problems in his classrooms.Likewise, he has supported other teachers as part of a team in dealing with studentproblem behaviors in their classrooms.

3.2. Data collection

Conducting a study on a sensitive issue as Ijime requires researchers to be aware ofethical standards to protect the respondents (Marshall & Rossman, 1999). Followingthe ethical standards described in Punch (1994), the author addressed the followingissues: (1) explanation of the purpose of the study and the protection of anonymityof the participants, (2) explanation of the participants’ right to withdraw from thestudy at any time, and (3) the protection of the participants from any harm thatcould result from the conditions observed by or informed to the researcher.On the first day of entry into Haruno Middle School, the author explained to the

students the purpose of the study and the methods to conceal individual identities inreporting the findings, as well as that the participation to this study is completelyvoluntary and that they have a right to stop their participation at any time. In orderto observe the natural setting surrounding Ijime incidents as a field researcher, it isimportant to keep the researcher’s influence as minimum as possible withoutintervening Ijime cases or judging Ijime perpetrators. However, a researcher also hasan ethical responsibility to protect the participants from any harm. Therefore, wheninformed about a Ijime case or observed a Ijime case, the author has reported to Mr.Suzuki. I kept my role as a listener and a supporter of the victims, not as an educatorwho tries to intervene Ijime cases.With these ethical issues integrated into the data collection methods, Japanese

students’ cultural perspectives on Ijime were derived through the following methods:(1) participant observations, (2) student diaries, and (3) in-depth interviews.

(1)
Participant Observations: participant observation is appropriate to record thestudents’ firsthand experiences of Ijime in the classroom, as well as the contextand details of Ijime which may be transparent to the participants or which theparticipants are unwilling to discuss (Marshall & Rossman, 1999). Suchinformation is essential to interpret the perceptions of students on Ijime. I spenttime with the 30 students every morning, at lunchtime, cleaning time, and at theirafter-class meeting. I taught English for 45min everyday to the class with thehomeroom teacher. I took raw field notes on any behaviors and remarks relatedto Ijime. Once leaving the field everyday, I wrote expanded field notes with myadditional interpretations.
(2)
Student Diaries: A student diary is a common communication tool betweenstudents and homeroom teachers about students’ lives and concerns in Japaneseschools. Mr. Suzuki’ has been using this tool to communicate with his students.Therefore, I chose to employ students’ diaries as one method to collect the dataon Ijime. The use of students’ diaries for data collection and voluntary nature of

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communicating with me through a diary were fully explained to the students.Students were invited to share any experiences at school and ask any questionsthey want to know about the US in addition to sharing their experiences relatedto Ijime. The students turned in their diaries in the morning and they arereturned with my further questions to clarify their experiences related to Ijime aswell as my responses to non-Ijime related questions at the end of the day.Twenty-nine students turned in their diaries at least once during the study andthe majority of the students turned in their diaries everyday, which proved theeffectiveness of this data collection method.

(3)
In-depth interview: At the end of the fieldwork period, I conducted an in-depthinterview with all the students outside of their classroom. I could gain moreinformation through the interviews than diaries from those students who may feeluncomfortable or may not be good at writing his/her feelings in a diary. A minimumof 1h in-depth interview was conducted with each student—some went longer than1h, depending on their needs and my research interests. Open ended-questionsabout their experiences of Ijime, opinions about Ijime, and their worries andconcerns about school were asked of students, based on the contents of their diaries.
Approximately 200 pages of diaries and 30 h of interviews from the 30 studentswere collected during the 1-month visit to Haruno Middle School. A total of 1 yearwas spent working on the data, including a series of phone interviews with thehomeroom teacher before the visit and continued communication with the studentsvia e-mail after the visit.The data on students’ discourse were analyzed with the following steps: (1)

generating themes and patterns, (2) coding the data, (3) testing the emergentunderstanding, and (4) searching for alternative explanations (Marshall & Rossman,1999). As a new theme emerges, the internal convergence within a theme wasexamined that is distinct from another theme.Triangulation of information was used to ensure the validity of the findings

(Maxwell, 2004). The comparisons of information gathered from the 3 methods:participant observation, communication through students’ diary excerpts, and in-depth interviews were conducted with students to assure the findings’ reliability.Also, the information derived from the study was also interpreted from otherresearchers in the US. These efforts at triangulation were useful to confirm that theauthor’s interpretations of the students’ perspectives on Ijime were not affected bybiases as an insider of the Japanese culture.

4. Results

4.1. The nature of Ijime

4.1.1. Ijime as a common problem in middle school

All the students interviewed informed the author about their experiences withIjime either as a perpetrator, a victim, or a bystander of it. They stated that Ijime

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happens on a daily basis and is so widespread that it has become the norm to havesome victims of Ijime in their classroom all the time.By Ijime, they meant any type of harassment, including physical as well as

psychological actions. Ijime can include name-calling, exclusion from one’s peergroup, or very serious actions (crimes) such as aggravated collective assaults. Thewords Hikou and Hikou shonen, meaning ‘‘delinquency’’ and ‘‘delinquent,’’respectively, were rarely used to indicate such Ijime actions and Ijime perpetratorsno matter how serious the actions might have seemed. Ijime was not considereddelinquent behavior by the students or their teachers. Delinquent is a word used onlyto describe a student who is arrested or sent to the juvenile classification office.Any acts classified by Western standards as delinquent and criminal were

considered simply Ijime in the Japanese school environment as long as it was dealtwith inside the school, which is a very common practice in Japanese middle schools.Interviews with students and their homeroom teacher revealed a common under-standing that sending students to police or outside agencies was to be avoided asmuch as possible, based on a cultural belief that Ijime perpetrators just need to bemore involved in classroom community.

4.1.2. Types of Ijime—collective behaviors

Ostracism, verbal abuse, stealing, hiding, and damaging personal possessions werethe most common types of Ijime among the students. Such behaviors were conductedby a group of perpetrators targeting one student. Any Ijime behaviors includingverbal abuse and stealing were conducted by a group of students. Ijime by onestudent does exist, although it is rare: such cases are considered minor, given thesocial support that the victim can get from other students. All the cases the authorobserved and was informed about were collective Ijime with one student havingIjime inflicted upon him or her by a group of students.Miho, a thin 14-year-old girl who always had a nervous look on her face, wrote in

her diary that she had been ostracized by all her classmates since elementary school.Her possessions were frequently stolen by her classmates and clubmates. Hernotebook came back to her severely damaged and filled with scribblings such as‘‘Die!’’, ‘‘Ugly!’’, ‘‘Feel sick to be with you!’’, and ‘‘Be always alone!’’ Her stolen penwas returned with a threatening letter containing similar words. These acts of Ijimetriggered ‘‘school refusal syndrome,’’ or Futouko of Miho for more than 1 year that

lasted until 6 months ago. Futouko is a common syndrome occurring when studentsexperiencing Ijime suffer psychological and physiological disorders as a result, whichmakes attending school under those circumstances very difficult.Another girl, one of the students informed the author, was also ostracized by her

clubmates. Her towel was stolen and made into a dust cloth to wipe the floor. Shefound pins inside her shoes, and her locker was used by others during her absence.Japanese students separate shoes to be worn outside and inside. The victims’ outsideshoes, which are stored at the building entrance, often become targets of Ijime. Inaddition, student lockers do not have locks in Japanese schools. Such psychologicalharassments by classmates or clubmates were typical examples of Ijime among girls.Minor Ijime by girls may involve mere ostracism and verbal abuse by a few students,

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but serious cases involve multiple harassments including both verbal and physicalthreats as well as ostracism by all of a victim’s classmates.Ijime among boys involves physical violence in addition to verbal abuse and

ostracism. For Hiroki, a 15-year-old boy with a mature and intelligent look, physicalviolence during recess time in his homeroom was common. He was dragged by hishair, kicked and punched by a group of students. His possessions, such as bags orbikes, were often stolen or damaged. He found his shoes frequently missing or withpins inside them. During my stay in Haruno Middle School, his shoes were stolenseveral times, and the author looked for his shoes with two other students afterschool. He also became a victim of aggravated assaults. A few days after my visit tothe school, he was taken to a storage room adjacent to an art classroom, then kickedand hit by three or four students during a cleaning time after school. This happenedbecause of a false rumor generated by students that Hiroki was saying ‘‘I will kill thebullies.’’ He also received a letter which threatened to set fire to his relatives’ house.Among boys, verbal abuse or ostracism by a few people was not considered Ijime.

Ostracism by all classmates and physical violence were considered Ijime by mostboys. However, such perceptions among boys about whether a certain behavior wasconsidered Ijime were derived from the perceived personalities or attitudes ofvictims. Hiroki was ostracized by all his classmates during the seventh and eighthgrades; some boys thought that it was not Ijime, but rather that Hiroki was beingpunished for cynical attitudes he had expressed regarding his classmates. The actionstaken against him were, therefore, perceived to be more revenge than Ijime. Suchsituation-specific definitions of Ijime were less common among girls.No cases that can be considered as sex-based harassment were reported as Ijime by

these students. No girls reported the sex-based victimization caused by boys and noboys reported the homophobic violence or harassment. Only the cases that involvedboth girls and boys are ostracism caused by all the classmates. It is very likely thatsex-based harassment exists in Japanese schools, but they were not at leastconsidered as a form of Ijime by these students.

4.1.3. Duration and location of Ijime—long-term isolation

One case of Ijime perpetuated by the same group of bullies can last from 1 monthto more than 1 year. For example, the Ijime of one girl involving ostracism andverbal abuse ended after 1 month when another girl became the new victim of thesame bullies. However, most cases lasted longer—from one semester to 1 year. Ijimeof another girl lasted for almost 1 year starting immediately at the beginning of theacademic year, ending at homeroom reorganization in the next academic year whichmeant she had less contact with the bullies.Ijime in transit to and from school happened, but it was not as common as during

school hours. None of the 30 students reported Ijime outside of school or in Juku.Ijime is a phenomenon that occurs predominantly on the school grounds, as pastliterature has found (Morita et al., 1999). These Ijime cases occurred based on socialgroupings at schools, classrooms and clubs. Classroom-based Ijime ended at thecompletion of the academic year when the change in classmates occurred. Theclassroom and school clubs are the two main social arenas at school for middle

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school students. Club-based Ijime ended when the victims quit the clubs. Most Ijimeoccurred among classmates or clubmates during recess time, after lunch break, andclub activities at times when teachers were not supervising the students.

4.2. Students’ explanations for their involvement in Ijime

4.2.1. How did Ijime start?—‘‘bullying for everyone else’s sake’’

A typical response to the question of how Ijime happened was that at first, a groupof two or three people started to hate one friend, it spreads to other people, andfinally all the classmates got involved in Ijime.Yoshiko, a cheerful 14-year-old girl who is a big fan of soccer, explained how she

started Ijime on one girl with her friends:

Yoshiko: I was in the same club. She wasn’t serious about club activity wheneveryone was practicing hard. I really hated it. So I asked people around ‘‘Don’tyou just hate her?’’ and ‘‘Do you want to do it (Ijime)?’’ Then, we decided toostracize her. We also harassed her and she stopped coming to school.Author: Were there any other reasons for the Ijime?Yoshiko: Yeah, everyone hated her personality, but we tolerated her for a while.Author: What kind of personality?Yoshiko: Well, she says whatever she thinksyanything negative. My friendshated it. So I said, ‘‘Stop it!’’ Then she said ‘‘Shut up!’’ This really made us mad,like ‘‘This is our limit!’’

Haruki, who is one of the top students in school and is actively involved in astudent committee, wrote his experience of inflicting Ijime on one classmate in hisdiary:

Haruki: I bullied someone before. At that time, I knew it was wrong but I justcouldn’t stop it. When I bullied him, he was too friendly, and followed peoplearound and everyone hated him. So I hated him and bullied him. I don’t thinkIjime is necessarily bullies’ fault. Surely, Ijime behavior is bad, but like in my case,when bullied students don’t stop something everyone hates, I think they have theproblems.

In an interview, he said that he ostracized the victim along with all the otherclassmates, and kicked or punched him sometimes. When asked again why he did it,Haruki said ‘‘He was too Shitsukoi (persistent).’’Common reasons for instigating Ijime expressed by eight students were ‘‘Everyone

hated him/her,’’ ‘‘selfish,’’ ‘‘Mukatsuku (irritating),’’ ‘‘Shitsukoi (persistent),’’ and‘‘Ussai (noisy).’’ These ‘‘selfish,’’ ‘‘Shitsukoi,’’ and ‘‘Ussai’’ characteristics of victimsoften triggered feelings of Mukatsuku in Ijime perpetrators. Such purportedly selfish,persistent, and noisy persons are often considered by other students as not capable ofunderstanding how others expect them to behave. They are perceived as differentfrom the others and thus stand out in the classroom or club teams.However, Ijime perpetrators feel ‘‘Mukatsuku’’ not only because of the victims’

non-conforming characteristics, but also because they perceive that everyone hates

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the victims. Yoshiko inflicted Ijime on one girl because she thought her friends wereannoyed and put up with the girl’s ‘‘different’’ behavior for a long time. Harukibullied one boy because everyone hated his behaviors, he said. This perception of‘‘bullying for everyone else’s sake’’ was commonly shared among the Ijimeperpetrators.

4.2.2. Classmates in Ijime situations: ‘‘just followed the others’’

There existed a common pattern in which other classmates were influenced by agroup of Ijime perpetrators and supported them by ostracizing the victim together.When the author asked why they followed Ijime perpetrators so easily, manystudents answered, ‘‘I just didn’t want the bullies to think I was a friend of thevictim.’’ When asked whether they felt scared of the bullies, their responses werecomplex. Most students did not feel that they were forced by bullies to join them.Yet, they agreed that if they tried to stop the bullies, they would likely have becomethe bullies’ next victims. However, this was not so much of an issue among them: itwas just natural for most of them to follow the Ijime perpetrators. They eitherthought it was fun to join in or believed that the victims deserved to be bullied.Kouji, who is actively engaged in the soccer club and is popular among classmates

because of his cheerful personality, said he thought Ijime was fun:

Author: Why did you join in the Ijime?Kouji: If I didn’t, I would be bullied.Author: Were you scared of the bullies?Kouji: No, I was not.Author: Then why did you get involved? Can’t you just not get involved at all?Kouji: Well, it’s fun to bully someone.

Sachiko, a sporty and high-achieving student, explained how one of her friendsbecame a victim:

Sachiko: We were a group of six students. When I arrived at school one morning,I found that one of the group members was totally isolated from the others. Thenmy friends told me that they had decided to ostracize her, so I joined too.Author: Why did she get ostracized?Sachiko: Well, I am not sure, but they said a lot of bad things about herylike shewas ‘‘selfish’’ and never listened to people, or talked bad about us behind ourbacks. So I thought she should be bullied.

Most of the classmates did not have any hateful feelings toward the victims untilthe Ijime perpetrators told them something negative about the victim. They evenjoined in Ijime without any personal feelings toward the victim at all. One boyinformed the author that one girl was bullied by all her classmates because she hadgrey hairs mixed in with the black hairs on her head. The author asked him whetherhe thought that was fair, and he said ‘‘No, it wasn’t. But I just followed the others.’’‘‘Just followed the others’’ seemed to be the main reason—sometimes the only

reason—to join in Ijime. Students would not even think about stopping it. Studentswho attempted to stop the Ijime were considered ‘‘strange,’’ ‘‘trying to get credit

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from teachers,’’ or ‘‘stupid enough to risk their own victimization.’’ Students did notmean only the Ijime perpetrators in the phrase ‘‘the others.’’ This phrase meant thedynamics dominating the circumstances in their classroom. All the studentsappeared quite sensitive to this dominant flow of what others thought and howthey acted. This dominant flow decided everything, regardless of the morality orjustice of the dynamics and circumstances.

4.3. Potential correlates of Ijime

The analysis of student reasons for their involvement in Ijime revealed that somestudents were victimized because they had characteristics different from what wasconsidered normal among the students. Once a student became the victim of Ijimeperpetrators, other students joined the Ijime, just following the flow or dynamicsinside the classroom or among clubmates.However, what were perceived as deviations in the victims’ personalities or

behaviors were minor personality traits, such as being ‘‘selfish’’ or ‘‘noisy,’’ thatcould be possessed by any person. Some students also mentioned physicalcharacteristics—such as having some grey hairs or being fat or small—as the onlyreasons for bullying. As a result, many students faced the possibility of becomingvictims. In fact, more than one-third of the students the author worked with in thestudy reported that they had been victims of Ijime at least once during their middleschool years.Beyond the distinct characteristics of victims, the fact that other students naturally

followed the Ijime perpetrators seems to add additional seriousness to Ijimesituations. It was apparent that a norm existed allowing Ijime to happen in theclassroom, and the majority of the students followed the norm without any reasonsto do so. Trying to stop Ijime was considered ‘‘trying too hard to look good,’’according to the students the author interviewed. The prevalence of Ijime seems to beassociated with classroom and club norms that allow Ijime to spread without afunction to control it.

4.3.1. The breakdown of control function in the classroom community

In order to understand the strategies the classroom and the teachers have taken todeal with Ijime cases, the author conducted a series of interviews with the homeroomteacher, Mr. Suzuki, throughout the year. Mr. Suzuki and other teachers in HarunoMiddle School were aware of the fact that his students were not willing to shareinformation or ask for help about solving Ijime cases. ‘‘Ijime is a very sensitive issuewhich involves the victims’ complex peer association,’’ he said. Because studentsconsider Ijime problems as peer issues in the classroom or club organizations, whatteachers can do directly in Ijime cases is limited to facilitating the development ofpeer association.Given the difficulty of collecting information on Ijime through student

notifications, the teachers in Haruno Middle School have developed a system ofanonymous student surveys. Through these frequent surveys, Mr. Suzuki said thathomeroom teachers could collect information on most Ijime cases happening in their

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classrooms. Some students wrote down the names of the victims; some otherstudents who were more cautious wrote down only the initials of the Ijimeperpetrators, whom the homeroom teachers could identify for the most part.Homeroom teachers could also identify the existence of Ijime in their classroomsduring classes. The victimized students were isolated when teachers asked students tomake a group by themselves for group work or recreational activities.After identifying the victims and Ijime perpetrators in their classrooms through

these methods, homeroom teachers usually met the victims confidentially andconfirmed the facts of Ijime. Further steps taken by homeroom teachers depended onhow victims wanted to deal with the problems. If the victims did not want theteachers to talk to the Ijime perpetrators because of potential retaliation from thoseperpetrators, teachers would completely respect their wishes. Instead, the teacherswould use the support from the teachers’ network to watch the relationship betweenthe victims and the perpetrators during classes and club activities. They might alsoask the close friends of the victims to provide emotional support to the victims.The strategies taken by the homeroom teachers, including Mr. Suzuki, to solve

Ijime problems focused around teacher networks and individual students who wereclosely involved in Ijime. Even in the cases where most classmates were involved inan Ijime case, the homeroom teachers did not bring up this problem as a classroomproblem or rely on the group function of dealing with the issue as a communitymatter. The logic behind this is clear: the victims do not want the teachers to bringthe cases to the classroom.This passive role of teachers, however, does not mean that the teachers are

intentionally neglecting Ijime cases. There seem to have two cultural andorganizational reasons that explain the passive role of teachers in intervening Ijimecases. First, Mr. Suzuki and other teachers believed that only the way to solve Ijimecases are through the reintegration of the victims into the classroom or at least to thepeer group. Because Japanese adolescents develop their identifies based on collectiveexperiences and values (Shimizu & Levine, 2001), when Ijime happens which isolatesthe individuals from the group, a natural response of the teachers is to bring thevictims back to the group. This cannot be achieved by punishing the bullies who areusually in the same peer group as the victim.Second, the organizational restriction that the victims cannot be separated from

the bullies in the same classroom at least for 1 year limits the options teachers cantake. Japanese homerooms are designed as the places where students feel a sense ofbelonging and where students develop socially and academically under the leadershipof the homeroom teachers and the class representatives. In the homerooms, everyoneis valued as an important member of the classroom community as explained in thehomeroom teachers’ attempts to include the students with problem behaviors, ratherthan punishing or excluding them (LeTendre, 2000; Lewis, 1995). Therefore,reorganizing the homerooms or isolating either the victims or Ijime perpetratorsfrom the classrooms do not address the core issue Japanese teachers see as the mosteffective method.When Mr. Suzuki was asked if he had ever seen a classroom where student class

representatives were actively involved in building a classroom community that did

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not allow Ijime problems, he replied, ‘‘It happens only in a TV drama.’’ His responseindicates that Japanese teachers do not rely any more on a group function in theirclassrooms to deal with serious problems such as Ijime. He pointed out that in mostclassrooms in which he had ever worked, leadership skills of class representativeswere not strong enough to expect any positive results, although he himself clearly ledthe classroom representatives to create a class atmosphere that did not allow Ijime.In addition, he mentioned that even if the class representatives were highlymotivated, it became a major challenge to deal with any problems if the otherclassmates had cynical attitudes towards anything associated with what teacherswould call ‘‘model behaviors.’’ This situation, according to Mr. Suzuki, oftenhappens in many middle school classrooms.As past ethnographic work on student guidance in Japanese middle schools has

showed (LeTendre, 1994, 1995, 2000), the guidance system consisted of the gradecommittee, the student guidance committee, and the school governing committeesurrounding the homeroom teachers. This system existed in Haruno Middle Schooland homeroom teachers, including Mr. Suzuki, heavily depended on the system todeal with student problems in their classrooms. However, the problems of Ijime andFutouko as a result of Ijime pose serious challenges to this system in solving theproblem. The culturally ideal form of counseling, ‘‘bringing the students intoclassroom community,’’ seems inappropriate in dealing with these problems.As described in the previous sections, Ijime is not an issue of only one victim and

several Ijime perpetrators. The roles played by the other students in the classroom orclub add special momentum to the severity of Ijime. As long as these students act asthe major agents behind the scenes and there exists a norm that allows Ijime toprevail, attempts to solve the problem by addressing only the victims and Ijimeperpetrators will be less likely to show any promise. In particular, the traditionalstrategy of ‘‘bringing the Ijime perpetrators into the classroom community’’ seemsout of place when even the model students who are strongly committed to theclassroom are the Ijime perpetrators. Moreover, the use of classroom function tosolve Ijime cases not only does not provide any solutions but also could exacerbatethe seriousness of Ijime when a norm that allows Ijime exists inside the classroom.Does the reliance on close friends of the victim seem to solve, or at least alleviate,

an Ijime situation? The nature of peer association in Ijime situations observedthrough student discourse is presented in the next section.

4.3.2. Loss of trusting friendship among students

Friendship was one of the biggest concerns among 30 students, especially amonggirls. Several girls showed their concerns over whether they fit into their peer groupand whether their friends considered them to be significant in the group. Kazue,a 15-year-old who was one of the class representatives, also expressed the pressure toconform to her friends to keep friendships.

I recently wonder if it is okay to stay in our group. I have two reasons for that,and the first one is that I worry if my friends are really thinking about me as theirfriend and having fun with me. I am the only one who belongs to the ping pong

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club in my class and none of them formed a peer group with me before. Anotherreason is that I used to prepare and review the class materials during the recesstime, but I haven’t done it since joining this group. My friends are readingmagazines and comic books during the recess time, which is forbidden [by schoolrules], but I read with them because I don’t want to be alone. I know it is wrong,but if I don’t do this, I will be isolated from the group.

Peer pressure is a distinct phenomenon among adolescents in many nations.However, three factors seem to enhance the effects of peer pressure on Japaneseadolescents. First is their group-oriented identity formation: Japanese form theiridentities based on their role and responsibility in a group (Shimizu & Levine, 2001).Therefore, the existence of friends is essential for them to recognize their own selves,especially in middle schools during adolescence, and Japanese students possess fewways to avoid peer pressure at the cost of losing friendship. Second, due to students’limited communication with their parents compared to their friends, the importanceof keeping friends is enhanced. A comparative study of adolescents’ peer relationshipshows that while American youths regard their parents as main consultants for theirworries, Japanese youths regard their friends as the main persons to whom they cantell their worries (Somucho, 1998). Third, due to their school-dominated lives, theirsocial arenas are mainly limited to homeroom and club activity. Most students forma peer group in the same classroom consisting of 30–40 students, given that themajority of time is spent in the classroom. Due to such limited socializationopportunities, once a group is formed there is almost no other way to find anothergroup to belong to in the same classroom. Such limited environment creates asignificance of keeping present friendships in spite of negative peer pressure.Many students expressed concerns that they could not feel comfortable with their

peer group. One boy wrote in his diary that he felt his communication is verylimited—only with his two friends, who do not share the same interests as he. Hewants to have more friends, but other groups had already been formed, and therewas no way for him to move to another group.In most cases of Ijime, both the Ijime perpetrators and the victims were originally

in the same peer group. How does such an unstable friendship play out when Ijimeoccurs? Mariko, a 14-year-old girl who belonged to the brass band club, expressed inher diary her worry about how her friends’ reputations may affect hers:

I feel reluctant to spend much time with my friends in the same group lately. Oneof my friends in another class told me that two of my friends are the most hatedpeople in my class. She said she heard it from two boys in my class. They said Iwould be in trouble if I stay in the same group. I started to worry about what theother classmates think about our group. I was worried about this for a long time.I started to feel I am different from the two friends in the group.

Her statement illustrates that what other classmates thought about her friends inthe same group significantly influenced her feeling and attachment toward herfriends. She did not tend to ignore or deny such rumors about her closest friends, butinstead legitimized to herself the thought that she was different from her friends to

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protect her own positive self-image in front of other classmates. This lack of trustingfriendship among students explains well why they easily follow the Ijimeperpetrators.Mr. Suzuki believed that even if classroom dynamics do not work in preventing

Ijime, the victims will be fine if they have a few close friends who can spend time withthem. However, the student discourse on friendship revealed that friendship cannotact as a shield to protect victims from Ijime perpetrators. No friendship was strongenough to protect the victims in face of pressures and anxiety to maintain a positiveself-image in front of other classmates. The breakdown of these two socialfunctions—classroom community and peer association, which could otherwise act tocontrol Ijime—are likely to explain the prevalence of Ijime in Japanese middleschools.

5. Discussion and conclusion

A close examination of the Ijime phenomenon through the perspectives ofstudents revealed the nature of Ijime and its surrounding contexts. I observed bothsimilarities and differences between Ijime in Japan and bullying in other countries.Similar to bullying in other countries (Olweus, 1996; Smith et al., 1999), girls’ Ijimetend to focus on psychological, relational, and indirect behaviors (name-calling,ostracism, spreading rumors), while boys tend to focus on physical violence as aform of Ijime. The definition of Ijime also differed between boys and girls. Boys’justification of Ijime is consistent with the findings from a survey conducted by Hara(2002). The fact that boys did not consider verbal abuse or ostracism by a few peopleas Ijime and justified Ijime acts by the victims’ problems may be explained by boys’culturally constructed masculinities in schools. Boys’ masculinities are manifested intheir idealization of characteristics that include physical strength, control,assertiveness, and competitiveness that justify and lead to aggression, cruelty, andhostility (Connell, 1995; Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997). Boys’ reliance on physicaltoughness may explain that they do not consider minor incidents as Ijime. Also, theyare more likely to justify their act because Ijime is a form of control over other males.This study also revealed unique characteristics of Ijime. First, Ijime is always a

collective behavior of multiple perpetrators targeting one victim as the past studieson Ijime reported (Crystal, 1994; Maniwa, 1990; Ministry of Education and Science,2004). It starts with a group of bullies and can potentially lead to all classmates orclubmates acting as bullies. Second, these are no cases of sex-based harassmentreported as Ijime among these Japanese students, unlike in the cases of bullying inUnited Kingdom, Australia and United States (Craig et al., 2001; Duncan, 1999;Kenway & Fitzclarence, 1997; Kenway et al., 1998; Mac An Ghaill, 1994; Pellegrini,2001). Third, most Ijime occurred among students who belonged to the samehomeroom and/or school clubs. Since homerooms and clubs are the major units ofsocial activities at Japanese middle schools, students form peer groups in theseplaces; thus, Ijime begins with a few students ostracizing or verbally attacking onestudent in the same peer group. These findings are also consistent with the past

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research on Ijime that Ijime mainly occurs at school, and it involves a group ofbullies targeting at an individual victim (Morita & Kiyonaga, 1996; Morita et al.,1999; Takekawa, 1993; Yoneyama & Naito, 2003).These peer groups, classrooms, and club activities were the contexts for Ijime.

Perpetrators bullied anyone who deviated from or violated the norms and rules oftheir community, then legitimized their actions by reasoning that they were doingIjime for the sake of everyone. Other classmates justified joining in Ijime by notingthat they were just following the others: either to avoid being the next victim, becausethey thought that the victim deserved to have Ijime inflicted, or that it was just fun tojoin in Ijime.The analysis of student and teacher discourse on classroom community and peer

relationship in the contexts of Ijime cases revealed that the prevalence of Ijime maybe explained by the breakdown of the traditional functions of classroom communityand peer group, both of which should, traditionally, prevent Ijime and protectvictims from Ijime perpetrators. The US ethnographic studies conducted during the1980s and early 1990s revealed the unique nature of Japanese homerooms that caneffectively function as a community to solve students’ problem behaviors. However,this study revealed that, based on the data collected during 2000, the Japanesemiddle school teachers did not rely on the classroom led by class representatives todeal with Ijime problems any more. They exhibited sensitivity that includedacknowledging the victims’ fear of potential retaliation from Ijime perpetrators andthe complex peer association that students consider to be their own sphere. Instead,the homeroom teachers used the teachers’ network to watch Ijime situationscarefully as well as to follow up with victims about any progress. Teachers madeevery effort through the teachers’ network and student counseling to improve thesituation during academic year, and at year’s end made a special arrangement forvictims to be physically separated from Ijime perpetrators. Their hope was that thevictims could develop a new relationship with other friends who could spend timewith them and potentially protect them from Ijime.However, when Ijime occurred within their peer group, singling out one student,

no student had a social tie or friendship strong enough to side with the victims andprotect them from Ijime perpetrators. Most students followed the Ijime perpetrators,sacrificing even their closest friends. They considered social isolation within theirclassroom and club community to be the most dreadful thing that could happen,given their group-oriented identity formation at their developmental stage. Thismeans that those students who become the victims of Ijime have no way out but towithstand their complete isolation until new classroom formation occurs at the endof the academic year. An increasing number of students who refuse to come toschool may be explained by their being denied, as a result of Ijime victimization, anexistence in school, where they strongly depend on peer groups to construct theirown identity at this developmental stage of their lives.It is important, however, to point out that some scholars reported that Japanese

schools started to rely on specialists such as school counselors since 1990s to workwith the students with serious behavioral problems including Futoko (Fukuzawa &LeTendre, 2001). However, the use of school counselors is a part of top-down school

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reforms implemented in recent years to deal with Futoko, not the initiative based onthe teachers’ needs. At the time of the study, Haruno Middle School did not have aschool counselor and no teachers expressed the needs for school counselors to dealwith Ijime. While recognizing the inability of classroom function to deal with Ijime,Haruno teachers still believed that other methods including teacher network throughcommittees, a survey, and their support to the victims and their friends are the waysto go. Their beliefs are based on their cultural assumption that only student groupscan solve the problem because of the group-centered identity formation of Japaneseadolescents, and the organizational inflexibility that students need to stay with thesame classmates in a homeroom at least for a year.Highly debated causes of Ijime; academic pressure and a perception of the futility

of study, power-dominant teacher–student relationship, and classroom managementthat emphasizes conformity and group cohesion, and the organization of school thatconfines students into a homeroom (Yoneyama, 1999; Yoneyama & Naito, 2003) didnot emerge as themes in the students’ discourse. The students did not express anyhostile feelings towards teachers or stress due to academic pressure or strict schoolrules and management. No students complained about the organization ofhomeroom or teachers’ inability to solve Ijime cases. Further studies may benecessary in order to examine these aspects in a more systematic manner.What caused the weakened classroom function and trusting relationship among

peers? This is a question which my data cannot offer answers. However, based on thedata, two explanations may be possible that characterize the recent school and socialchanges that may explain the appearance of Ijime phenomenon. First, reduced timefor social development at school may explain reduced opportunity for students todevelop a trusting relationship with peers and to feel a sense of belonging to theclassroom (Fukuzawa & LeTendre, 2001). With the enactment of the new schoolschedule reduced to 5 days a week, the time for art festivals, athletic festivals andschool trips as well as non-core subjects including moral education and art educationhas been generally reduced. This may indicate that students have less chance toengage in meaningful socialization that could contribute to the development oftrusting peer relationship.Second, the lack of group orientation and trusting peer relationship may be a

reflection of larger societal changes towards individualization (Fukuzawa &LeTendre, 2001). With a smaller number of businessmen spending after hours forsocializing with their colleagues and a diminished sense of local community whereneighbors are strangers, it is becoming more difficult to expect their children todevelop group-orientation and trusting peer relationship. Despite these societalchanges, there have been few changes in the school organization to foster collectivevalues to prepare students for the society. The impact of the gap between the societalchanges and the traditional role of schools to foster Japanese cultural values needs tobe examined in relation to Ijime phenomenon in future studies.The limitations in this case study include the data being limited to one classroom in

one public middle school and the lack of contextual data from parents, community,local counseling, and medical/psychiatric facilities. Despite these limitations, thefindings from this study have important policy and practical implications. Japanese

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educators and policy makers need to understand that Ijime is so widespread that it isthe norm to have a victim in their classrooms all the time. More importantly, they needto understand that they cannot leave Ijime problems for students to solve because ofthe breakdown of classroom function in preventing and stopping Ijime, in addition tothe lack of trusting peer relationships among students. In order to promptly deal withIjime cases, schools need to change this classroom norm by introducing a controlfunction such as a reduction of unsupervised time during school hours and/or theimplementation of more strict consequences for Ijime perpetrators. However, for along-term solution to Ijime and Futouko as a consequence of Ijime, the Japanesegovernment needs to make a systemic change in the structure of Japanese schooling sothat students will have increased opportunities for social development and nurturingtrusting peer relationships.

Acknowledgement

I would like to thank Ms. Fumie Kobayashi for her continuous support of thiscase study. Her support throughout the fieldwork is greatly appreciated. Thisresearch is supported by the Pi Lambda Theta Research Grant. Opinions reflectthose of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the granting agency.

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Nature and correlates of Ijime—Bullying in Japanese middle school

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