Japanese children’s perspectives on the

Figure 1.5: Support levels in peer support schemes


Also, the wider community support level activities often allow peer supporters to work outside the school, where several schools have organised support activities between the lower secondary schools and primary schools (Yamada, 2008; Takeuchi, 2008). For example, Takeuchi (2008) reported that peer supporters answered questions and issued letters of advice to primary school pupils. This provided pupils with useful advice and information, which helped them to diminish worries about daily school life in the lower secondary school. In a sense, these activities can be regarded as prevention methods for school bullying and school non-attendance during the transition from primary school to the lower secondary school. The activities in the wider community support level, provide various forms of peer support, where children take the initiative to provide support to others often outside of school.
Regarding the types of peer support approach used, Naylor and Cowie (1999) used a questionnaire survey to explore the breakdown of the types of peer support approach in secondary schools and colleges (n=51, a response rate of 83.6%) in the UK. Also 10 years later, Houlston et al (2009) conducted a large-scale survey to explore how peer support is currently used in English primary (n=130) and secondary schools (n=110). Tables add table numbers below summarise the breakdown of the types of peer support both in 1999 and in 2009.
Table 1.5: Breakdown of peer support in secondary schools and colleges____

Befriending………………….70% Mentoring…………………6%

Counselling………………….18% Mediation………………….6%

___________________________________________________________________

(Naylor and Cowie, 1999)


Table 1.6: Breakdown of peer support in primary and secondary school___

Primary school Secondary school Total

Type of approach N (%) N (%) N (%) ____

Befriending 75 (84.3) 71 (73.2) 146 (78.5)

Mentoring 23 (25.8) 82 (84.5) 105 (56.5)

Mediation 53 (59.6) 45 (45.4) 99 (53.2)

Counselling 5 (5.6) 30 (30.9) 35 (18.8)

Others 8 (9.0) 8 (8.2) 16 (6.7)

*Many schools reported using more than one type of approach__________________

(Houlston et al, 2009)

It is clear from these findings that the most popular approach is “befriending”, as more than 70% of both primary and secondary schools employed it. It is also evident that the use of Mediation and Mentoring has increased over the last 10 years, especially mediation in primary and mentoring in secondary schools. The earliest types of peer support were developed from a counselling model. However, many teachers and peer supporters expressed a preference for more informal models, and so there has been a tendency to move away from counselling-based systems to more informal befriending systems (Cowie, et al 2002). However, it is still rare to employ peer support in both a whole school and wider community support levels.
No Japanese studies have investigated the breakdown of the types of peer support approaches. However, from the research papers, it seems a large number of Japanese schools also employ befriending, and other types of peer support scheme, which are often related with a whole school and wider community support.
Also because of the development and usage of peer support, other forms of peer support have arisen and are categorised, such as cyber peer support, and social action (James, 2012; Cowie & Jennifer, 2008). These developments have been caused through teachers realising that applying of one particular model of peer support could be too inflexible and instead suggesting that it was necessary to adapt to the particular needs of the school and its pupils, which have strongly been influenced by their culture (Cowie, et al, 2002).
1.9 The sample of peer support activities in a lower secondary school

A sample Japanese school in this research has applied peer support into various types of activities. In this school, three teachers were qualified peer support coordinators by JPSA. These coordinators provided the training sessions and supervisions with peer supporters. All the peer support activities, which were conducted in the school were regarded as common activities in terms of JPSA’s practices.

Seven years ago, the local city council set up the educational policy, which encouraged all schools to employ peer support programs for children’s emotional and behavioural well-beings. Since then, the schools in this school district have actively been applying peer support activities into their own schools. The aims of introduction of peer support programmes were to create a supportive school environment and to reduce the incidence of bullying (Board of Education in Neyagawa-city, 2013). This is because the school district was located in an area where 30% of households have received income support from the local government and also the schools were generally reported as having lower standards in this area. Thus, with the cooperation of the researchers (from JPSA), the local government has assisted the schools to apply peer support programmes as a prevention system against school bullying and make efforts to create supportive school environments (Board of Education in Neyagawa-city, 2013; Takeuchi, 2010).
For two months, the author of this thesis attended the school every day and joined pupils’ peer support activities to assist the peer supporters. In terms of the author’s experience and views. The following sections describe the Japanese peer support activities and traditional school activities, which were conducted in the school. These include; cleaning the local community (volunteering activities), nationwide school summit, anti-bullying drama, a greeting campaign, and own school summits, and cleaning own school.
As described later in section 2.7 (Salmivalli’s participant role theory (1999) and Bronfenbrenner’s ecological theory of human development (1979)), children’s emotional and behavioural developments would be understood in terms of the theories, which consider the dynamics of children’s peer group relationship and the wider impact in the cultural and environmental context. These theories can be used to further understand the following peer support activities.

1.9.1 Cleaning the local community (Volunteer activity)

Peer supporters have regularly contributed to cleaning activities in the local area, which are the activities outside the school. In terms of the Japanese peer support clarification (Figure 1.4, p34), this seems to belong to the wider community support level. In a school, cleaning activities are regularly organised once a month and in most cases, the activities are conducted after school. Peer supporters clean (pick up garbage) the roads, squares (public garden), ditch and parking space of shopping centre, which takes about one hour. In this time, peer supporters from a lower secondary school, work together with peer supporters from a primary school.

Five peer supporters from a secondary, and 7 peer supporters from a primary school joined the activity. They worked as a team, and each team had several senior peer supporters to work with the younger pupils. Senior pupils looked after and communicated with the younger pupils to manage the activities. In short, secondary school pupils provided support to the younger pupils through the activities, and created supportive good relationships between secondary and primary school pupils. This also appears that senior pupils show their behaviours as a role model and younger pupils learn the good manners and pro-social behaviours from older pupils. In terms of pupils’ experiences, younger pupils gave positive feedback when they had the activities together with senior peer supporters.
It is common that occasionally the secondary school pupils conducted some kinds of activities together with the primary school pupils in the same local area (Takahashi, 2010; Takeuchi, 2008). Many schools have conducted similar activities as the traditional educational events in Japan. However, in most cases, teachers take the lead and organize the activities and it seems that pupils are encouraged to do the activities by the teachers. In a sense, the teachers have initiatives and take the responsibility for it. In this school, however, peer supporters were given the responsibilities and took the initiative as much as possible, which allowed them to organise and plan meetings and take the lead for the whole activities through to the end. In this sense, the cleaning activity has a strong sense of peer-led activity, and this appears to activate their motivations to complete the activities. In short, peer supporters took the initiatives for the planning and actual support of the activities, rather than the teachers take the lead. It seems to be key to hand over the responsibility to pupils.
The researchers have discussed that empowerments to pupils make them devote themselves to their duties and responsibilities. In a sense, this research will explore pupils’ experiences of how they feel and think about their responsibilities and the peer support activities. In addition, the cleaning activities are something to contribute to the local community. In this vein, it gives pupils the opportunities to connect with the community outside the school. This seems to help them to feel familiar with the community and to develop their sense of citizenship. It is also beneficial for the local residents as they are pleased to see the pupils making a contribution towards the local community. In fact, after the activities, one school received two phone calls from the residents, which expressed their appreciations about the pupils’ efforts to clean a park.
At the end of the activity, all peer supporters gathered to hold a short meeting for reviewing their work (see the photo 1.2). The activity which they have done, was shared with other pupils in a newsletter or school assembly following the activities.

1.9.2 Greeting campaign

The greeting campaign encourages courteous interaction among pupils in the school. In terms of the Japanese peer support clarification (figure 1.5, p.29), this seems to belong to the whole school support level. This is the opportunity for pupils to say “good morning” positively to each other in the morning. The campaign is organised several times during a school year, where peer supporters take the lead for the campaign activities.

Peer supporters arrive at the school early in the morning, then they stand side by side in front of the school gate to greet other pupils. Also they hold a handmade banner, which says “Good morning is the word to have a great day!” Technically, the campaign activity starts at 7:45am and continues until 8:20am. When other pupils enter the school gate, peer supporters say “Good morning” to other pupils in a loud voice. Then, other pupils reply to the peer supporters, “Good morning”. Some pupils reply to the peer supporters cheerfully, and some others reply in small voice.
However, some pupils do not reply and ignore the peer supporters, suggesting they are shy or anti-social pupils. When I was attending the greeting campaign, the campaign was continuously carried out for two weeks. After a few days passed, pupils seemed to get used to the greeting campaign. Even the pupils who did not reply to the peer supporters, started to say “good morning”. This means that gradually pupils have started to greet cheerfully, and the campaign activity is improving.
With various reasons such as shyness, it is very difficult for pupils to greet cheerfully. In terms of my observation, at the beginning of the campaign, only few pupils greeting in a loud voice. What I the author found was, the pupils who greeted in a loud voice, were friends of peer supporters. Thus, when the peer supporters said “good morning” in a loud voice, these pupils (friends of peer supporters) also reply cheerfully to them.
This appears a critical point in terms of having successful peer support activities. Peer supporters’ friends’ behaviours (e.g. greeting in a loud voice) seemed to create the supportive atmosphere, where other pupils are also able to say “good morning” without any hesitations. In a sense, friendships between peer supporters and their friends, helped to change the difficult atmosphere, and create better situations.
Eventually, these pupils who are close friends of the peer supporters, also stood side by side next to the peer supporters, and they made a long line of pupils to greet other pupils, further improving the cheerful atmosphere. Although only 10 peer supporters initially greeted other pupils at the start of the campaign, a total of about 40 to 50 pupils were standing side by side assisting towards the end of the greeting campaign.

1.9.3 Fund-raising activities

Fund-raising activities are also commonly used for the peer support programmes. This means that peer supporters take responsibilities for running activities which benefit the wider community (see section 1.5).

These activities have been strengthened following the Great Earthquake and Tsunami in March 2011 in Japan, giving motivations to the peer support scheme to fund raise for this cause. Peer supporters in this school took opportunities to be involved in the community by organising the fund-raising activities and inviting other pupils to join them. However, generally it was only peer supporters who attended and ran these activities, due to other pupils’ time constraints (e.g. school clubs).
Peer supporters visited the town centre, including the station, shopping centre and in school. They held collection boxes for donations and encouraged people to support their cause. In the school, peer supporters also stood in the entrance hall side by side, and collected donations from pupils.
Following the collecting activities, peer supporters counted the donations and forwarded the money to the charity. They also announced the fund-raising total to the school in the following school assembly to promote the collaboration between the school and wider community, and the benefits of the peer support scheme. Peer supporters themselves also had the opportunity to cooperate together and contribute to the wider community as a result of the peer support activities. As mentioned previously, this gives the pupils opportunities to connect with the community outside the school, and also resulted in their emotional and behavioural developments.

1.9.4 Anti-bullying drama

Peer supporters not only provide support individually to pupils who are in distress (e.g. victims of the bullying), but also as a team, they contribute to the prevention against school bullying as a part of an anti-bullying campaign. One of the popular prevention methods is using an anti-bullying drama, which is organised by the peer supporters.

Since 2008, anti-bullying drama has been conducted annually as a city-wide peer support programme. In terms of the peer support clarification, this seems to belong to the wider community support level. The anti-bullying drama is a large scale peer-led activity, and more than 40 peer supporters are involved. All actors and actresses are recruited from pupil volunteers across the city; most of them are generally peer supporters from 12 secondary schools. Several peer supporters joined the drama activity from the school where the author was involved.
The anti-bullying drama is a large scale activity across the city, which has some technical issues, that requires support from adults. Therefore, two adults play a role as peer support coordinators and strongly provide support for peer supporters. These coordinators are generally school teachers, who are also the members of The Japanese Peer Support Association. Pupils are given responsibility as much as possible, and they need to corporate with all peer supporters in various ways. For example, the drama scripts were composed by pupils themselves, which were based on their own experiences in schools. Thus, the story and its performance convey a sense of reality, which seems to resonate in audiences’ hearts.
Technically, after pupils are recruited, they prepare and practice for about two months before their performance is conducted. The rehearsals and practices were carried out mainly during the weekend and vacation time. With their utmost effort, the pupils repeatedly practised their performances. Through the rehearsal activities, the pupils from different schools have deepened their friendships. These experiences seem to create pupil networks beyond their own schools to contribute to other peer support activities.
The anti-bullying dramas have been performed in public theatres and school auditoriums. Not only secondary school pupils from local schools, but also primary school children, their parents and teachers were invited to see the drama. In terms of teachers’ feedback (Takeuchi, 2010), teachers were emotionally moved with the pupils performances. Due to the great appreciation from the audiences, DVDs were created for anti-bullying material based on these dramas, and DVDS were showed in all primary and secondary schools in the local area.
1.9.5 Nationwide school summits

Nationwide school summits were organised with support from various charity groups, educational institutions and local governments. As a part of the promotion of peer support schemes, schools with notable and/or interesting activities are invited to the school summits as presenters. The schools are nominated from all over Japan, and the representatives of peer supporters gather to have a school summit. When the author joined the summit in 2013, about 8 representative groups were invited from both the primary and secondary schools. This time, the nationwide summit was held at Miyagi prefecture, which was the most affected area by the great earthquake of 2011. The summit was a whole day activity, which consisted of two parts. In the first part, each representative gave presentations about their peer support activities. In the secondary part, peer supporters were divided into small groups and had a group discussion about peer support activities and pupils’ well-being.

The peer supporters, whom the author worked together with, gave a presentation about their anti-bullying drama (as shown in the photo below). They explained the details of the activities; how they recruited all actors and actresses across the city, how they created the drama scripts which were based on their own experiences, how they practiced again and again in the weekend to make a better performance. Also other representatives from different areas gave the presentations about other peer support activities. Some talked about their fund-raising activities for the victims of the earthquake; while others gave presentations about how they ran their peer support activities to contribute to the local community.
It was noticeable that many volunteer university students worked for the summit, and they specially joined the group discussions as facilitators to support younger peer supporters. It appeared that peer supporters strongly receive influence from youth who are close in age, rather than mature adults or their teachers. This again, made the peer supporters part of the initiative and take responsibility, rather than feeling forced by adults and teachers. In short, in most cases of peer support activities, pupils/peer supporters played vital role in taking responsibility, and adults (teachers) provided support if necessary. Also, in the group discussions, peer supporters shared their thoughts and feelings with other pupils from the different schools. The interactions with other peer supporters seemed to provide good opportunities to widen their own views. This would help the peer supporters to develop their peer support activities, which contribute to their own schools and local areas.
After the summit, all pupils provided feedback about the school summit at the review meeting. It would be interesting to know how they felt about the summit and how the summit helped them in various ways in their own lives and peer support activities. In this sense, it would be important for this research to explore the details of peer supporters’ lived experiences about being a peer supporter by using interviews.
As an optional activity, the summits organised a tour to visit Ishinomaki-city which was terribly damaged by Tsunami in 2011 (see photos below). It seemed to be meaningful for pupils to see the situations of the damaged area with their own eyes. This visit was an opportunity to remind the pupils to acknowledge their activities are strongly connected with the community’s needs.
1.9.6. School summits in the city-wide level

The school summits were also organised in the city-wide levels in several areas. In this city, the school summits are held twice a year, and the representatives of peer supporters from 12 secondary schools are invited to it.

The summits provide the opportunities for peer supporters to share their peer support activities and experiences with other peer supporters who are from other schools. Each school has unique peer support programmes depending on their situation and school’s needs. Therefore, it is a good opportunity for the peer supporters to know other school’s activities and to learn something new about them. In a sense, it is (natural) beneficial for them to borrow the ideas from other schools, and then apply these within their own schools.
The aim of the school summits is to provide the opportunity for peer supporters to be in friendly rivalry, which facilitate their activities. In fact, the board of education (within the city council) strongly encourage all schools to run the peer support programmes, and at the same time, the board of education organise the school summits, which allow many peer supporters to interact with other pupils from other schools.
The Board of Education believed that the school summits provide the supportive network of peer supporters across a city, and this would help further developments of peer support activities. For example, anti-bullying drama is a typical activity, which is based on cooperation of peer supporters in city-wide level. Also, the summits provide the opportunity to have group discussions among peer supporters. They discuss how they should cope with and tackle bullying issues, and they have proposed the intervention/prevention methods against bullying. In addition, as a part of the school summits activities, there is the summer training camp. The peer supporters stay at the youth lodging facility overnight, and attend the training session of peer support skills.
In terms of its activities, the city-wide school summits play a role to train their social skills as well as to cultivate their friendships among the peer supporters.

1.9.7 School summits in school-based level

Some schools organise the school summit within their own schools. In this school, the school summit is held once a year, and peer supporters gather to discuss and give presentations about their peer support activities in their classroom. Since each class has a peer supporter(s), they share their experiences and activities with other peer supporters in the summit.

Generally, the peer support activities aim to prevent pupils from bullying and school refusal. Thus, most activities focus on the creation of better inter-personal relations among pupils, which often strongly related to academic and behavioural improvements of pupils. Due to the cultural traditional customs, which are influenced by collectivism, Japanese schools often have several school events and activities, involving the group of pupils, the whole class, and the whole school. For example, choral contests, school sports meetings, school clubs, and a cultural festival are held as established customs, and these events have often been used as the extensions of peer support activities. In this sense, peer supporters take the lead for the activities, and they facilitated the supportive interactions among pupils.
As an example, a peer supporter talked about, how she used the sports festival as a peer support activity to improve friendships between pupils in class. She suggested dividing the classmates into several groups, and encouraged the group members to take care of other pupils mutually. She mentioned that eventually pupils who used to stay alone, could actively join the event with support from other group members of the class. Also, pupils who are usually not cooperative with classmates, started to work together to prepare for their duties and events.

Similarly, a peer supporter in each class has these kinds of activities and experiences, and it is the opportunity to share their own experiences and to know others’ strengths. In this sense, the school summit seems to encourage pupils to improve their activities and to give the influence to the whole school in a positive way.