Japanese children’s perspectives on the

2.7 The cultural issues in Japanese peer support

2.7.1 Influences of collectivism in peer support

Japan, located in Far East Asia, has been traditionally influenced by collectivist culture. Collectivism means that a society in which people from birth onward are integrated into strong, cohesive in-group, which throughout people’s lifetime continues to protect them in exchange for unquestioned loyalty (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). Therefore, it is natural that Japan has own specific educational systems and practices based on its own culture and tradition, which have been developed over the years.

From the findings in the field of peer support in education (Chapter 1 and 2), the implementation of peer support seems to be given strong cultural influences in terms of its form of activities, training and objectives. As mentioned, peer support programmes are flexible in order to meet the school needs and age differences, depending each situation. However, the findings seemed to indicate that the practices of peer support in Japan radically differ very much from the western nation’s approach. Due to cultural influences, Japanese peer support programmes have been boldly developed to harmonise with the existing traditional activities. This eventually resulted in covering wider range of educational issues and activities beyond the original concept of peer support approach.
In general, the practice of peer support in the western nations is strongly based on a person-centred (Rogerian model) approach (e.g. peer counselling, befriending, peer mentoring, peer tutoring and peer mediation). On the other hand, the practices in Japan seem to be changed or evolved into citizenship oriented approach. In other words, in terms of the western nations’ concepts, several forms of peer support activities in Japan seemed not to be considered as peer support, rather other different educational activities, which are related to (or are oriented towards) citizenship education. In short, peer support activities, which are strongly based on Rogers’ model, should be classified as different activities from other group activities, such as greeting campaigns, clearing campaign, fund-raising activities, and anti-bullying dramas.

Hofstede and Hofstede (2005), the leading scholars of the cultural studies in anthropology, likened the culture to mental programming. They argued that mental programmes vary as much as the social environments in which they were acquired, thus people’s thoughts and behaviours seem to differ from others in terms of their culture and experiences (Hofstede and Hofstede, 2005). A typical cultural example is that Japanese people have a reputation for their politeness and good social behaviour, which are strongly related to cultural habits (Komiya, 1999). Their collective behaviours are mutually related with peer pressure, conformity and (group) norms, thus, in terms of behavioural modification (change), it is critical to consider the peer relationships among groups as external factors, which are opposite to internal (individual) factors. In this vein, Komiya (1999) indicates that Japanese people’s high self-control and sense of security seemed to be influenced by their peer pressure and norms.

As mentioned (see section 1.3), since the mid-90s, Japanese scholars (educators) started conducting peer support programmes, based on the Western model (Nakano & Morikawa, 2009). During this early stage, the implementation of peer support practice in Japan was the same as the western approach, which is based on a counselling model. That is to say, most activities of peer support were limited to peer counselling and befriending due to no example of peer support practice in Japanese schools. In fact, Nishikidai lower secondary school and Hongo lower secondary school in Yokohaya city applied a peer support scheme in the mid-90’s, and their practices were purely based on the person-centred (Rogerian model) approach. The selected peer counsellors supported pupils who were in distress due to school bullying (Sakai, 1996; Sakai, 1998).

However, peer support has gradually been developed into a much wider range of practices in order to harmonise with cultural and traditional issues in school. In this process, several cultural and educational factors seemed to promote the structural change of the western approach into Japanese style peer support. These factors seemed to be “debate between a counselling model view and an educational model view”; “peer group influence”, and “direct supporting activities and indirect interventions”. In fact, many peer support studies were aimed to show how peer support activities bring positive results to children in terms of these factors.

The following sections will discuss how these cultural factors gave impact on peer support practice, which resulted in forming Japanese style peer support programmes.
2.7.2 “Counselling model view” and “Educational model view”

In Japan, even though scholars and researchers had been learning its concepts and approaches from western nations, Japan has developed their own views and approaches due to the educational needs and cultural backgrounds. In this regard, Cowie and Kurihara (2009) mentioned that in Japan, peer support programmes have been developed with influence of two different views; 1) “Counselling model view” whose emphasis is to emotionally care and look after children in distress and 2) “Educational model view” which is to provide children with social skills training for preventing them from being in troubled situations. In terms of “Education model view”, it is desired that children have the opportunity to receive social skills training as a part of a prevention strategy. This seems to bring a notable difference between Japan and other western countries, regarding the selection of peer supporters.

Usually in the UK, Canada, US, and Australia, selected children who want to be peer supporters, have been given training by a teacher or a psychologist. In short, most peer supporters are working as volunteers in western approaches. For example, in the selection, teachers draw up a short list on the basis of the candidates’ documents and/or interviewed those candidates, and a relatively small number of peer supporters were selected for training (Cowie & Olafsson, 2000). Also in most cases, the majority of peer supporters are female pupils and the number of male peer supporters is generally very small.
By contrast, in Japan, training of peer support was often given to all children as a whole class activity (Kurihara, 2007; Nakano, 2006). This is because peer support seems to be educationally a very meaningful activity for children’s emotional development, and it seems much more effective to give training to all children in order to create a supportive school atmosphere (Nakano, 2006).
As a reflection of this view, peer supporters are sometimes sent somewhere outside the school environment to have experiences of supporting activities. From the viewpoints of western approaches, it might be peculiar to do the supporting activities somewhere outside schools, however, many studies report pupils’ supporting activities outside school as a part of peer support programmes in Japan (e.g. Takahashi, 2010; Takeuchi, 2008; Konno & Ikejima, 2007; Takahashi, 2006).
One of the examples is the peer support programme in Futaba lower secondary school in Hiroshima, Japan (Takahashi, 2010). In Futaba lower school, after the training, a whole class in the first and second year pupils were sent to local primary schools, kindergarten, nursery, and a nursing home for the supporting activities. Depending on the situations, their supporting activities took various forms such as supporting club activities, supporting math class, helping story hour, supporting cooking practice, and so on. In the assessments (pre- and post-test), pupils’ emotional and behavioural developments were improved after the activities and also their school climate was improved too (Takahashi, 2010). In fact, the supporting activities outside their own schools was often reported and there is also a very wide diversity in their supporting relationships, such as “lower secondary school pupils support primary school pupils (Tahahasi, 2010)”, “upper secondary school pupils support lower secondary school pupils (Seto & Mori, 2009)”, “lower secondly school pupils support primary school pupils (Takeuchi, 2008; Takahashi, 2010)”, and “university students support secondary school pupils” (Konno & Ikejima, 2007).
In terms of the “Education model view”, it seems to be important for pupils to have experiences of interpersonal supporting activities to enrich their emotional and behavioural development, and eventually this creates a supportive climate in their own school. This view also has been applied for various activities in Japan (e.g. clearing the local area, school trips, experience of farm work, older pupils’ teaching to younger pupils, other group activities in school), and these seem to provide opportunities for children to develop their social skills which can be applied in daily life (Nakabayashi, 2005). From the above, peer support programmes widely vary according to school needs, and provide a flexible framework which offers appropriate support to peers through the training and activities.
2.7.3 Peer group influence

As mentioned (in section 2.7.1), the collective behaviours are mutually related with peer pressure, conformity and (group) norms, thus, in terms of behavioural modification, it is critical to consider the peer relationships among groups as external factors. One example is the indifference of bystanders (peers) to bullying in Japan, which was mentioned in section 2.5.1. Children’s attitudes and behaviours seemed to be strongly influenced by cultural contexts, especially group norms and peer relationships. In Japan, as pupils get older, they tend to avoid involvement in bullying situations, which negatively influences their friends’ behaviours and peer relations. In short, as pupils grow, they become more reluctant to provide support with other pupils who are in distress.

In fact, in terms of children’s prosocial behaviours, in the last decade, the studies have paid more attention to social groups and interpersonal relationships, such as “conformity”, “group norm”, and “pupils’ interrelationships” in schools (e.g. Nipedal, et al, 2010; Sutton & Keogh, 2000; Sutton & Smith, 1999). Various factors in social groups and interrelationships seem to give strong influences on children’s social behaviours. Therefore, especially in Japan, it is necessary to take into account these issues in order to effectively provide educational services. This view seemed to promote the peer support programmes into wider group and community level activities, which are beyond a person-centred (Rogerian model) approach.
The term, “Conformity” means a general tendency to allow one’s opinion, attitudes actions and even perceptions to be affected by prevailing opinions, attitudes, actions and perception (Reber, 1995). Especially in pre-adolescence, it is thought that personal judgements and actions are easily connected with the standard and actions of people of the same generation. In Addition, Costanzo (1966) explained that it is during the period of 11 to 13 years of age that fellow feelings and conformity are promoted. Therefore it is entirely possible that as the relationships among friends develop, children would receive a greater influence from friends rather than parents and teachers. In this sense, it seems much more effective to give training to all children in order to create supportive peer relationships in school. In short, as the number of pupils who actively provide support to others grows in proportion to the school population, school climates are more positively reinforced (Lane-Garon & Richardson, 2003). From the reasons above, peer group membership is exceedingly important to children and also the peer group has the potential to exert considerable influence on group members.
In terms of peer group’s influences, Ojala and Nesdale (2004) found interesting results. Their study found that among pupils aged 10-13 years, in-group members considered bullying behaviours to be much more acceptable when it was consistent with group norms. This seems to demonstrate that group members are required to behave in accordance with the group norms. Even if individual group members have negative feelings toward anti-social behaviours, they may take anti-social behaviours when anti-social behaviours are normative in the group. In a sense, the influence of pupil’s group norms seems to weaken their individuals’ factors, such as their empathetic motives.
Similarly, Nipedal et al (2010) found that the group norms significantly influenced the group members’ direct and indirect aggressions among 7 and 10 years old children. However, more interestingly Nipedale et al (2010) found that “the school norms” tended to decrease the impact of “the group norm” on the children’s aggressive intentions when the two norms were in opposition, although this effect was only significant for 7 year old children. In this regard, Nipedal et al (2010) mentioned that 10 year old children’s aggressive intentions were significantly less than those of 7 year old children. Therefore it was difficult to make further reduction of 10 year old children’s aggressive intentions by the school norm.
The findings above suggest the possibility that by reinforcing the positive school norms (climates), children’s prosocial behaviours can be improved effectively through the peer support methods. This seem to strongly support the views of Cowie and Kurihara (2009) and Lane-Garon & Richardson (2003), which is that as the number of pupils who actively provide support to others grows, school climates are improved and it encourages further study to deepen the detail of pupils’ views about the relationship between peer support services and peer group influences.
From the above (conformity, group norm, and pupils’ interrelationships) it appeared that in a collectivist culture, it was more beneficial to integrate the peer support activities with wider group level activities. As indicated, the core principle of peer support was originally to encourage children to help their peers who are in distress, based on the person-centred (Rogerian model) approach. However, considering peer group influences, wider group level activities have been encouraged to harmonise with existing group activities, and eventually this resulted in producing peer-led activities, indulging anti-bullying drama, peer-led volunteering, farming activities, and cleaning campaign. Again, these peer-led activities appeared not to be considered as peer support activities in the western nations. However, in Japanese research, when children took on roles to support other children, it appeared to be called “peer support”.
2.7.4 “Direct supporting activities” and “Indirect interventions”.

It is also important to examine the difference between “Direct supporting activities” and “Indirect interventions” in terms of children’s emotional and behavioural developments. “Direct supporting activities” refers to children’s involvement in direct experiential activities (e.g. experience of joining supporting activities and skill training). “Indirect interventions” refers to children receiving moral education lessons (e.g. reading stories and episodes from textbooks).

In terms of children’s behavioural change, Japanese peer support studies have paid attention to relationships between the training and supporting activities, and how each factor influences peers’ thoughts and behaviours. As mentioned (in section 1.2), most (81.5%) moral education lessons in Japan were carried out by reading stories and episodes from textbooks, hence there was not much opportunity for children to be involved in direct supporting activities. Also as highlighted in chapter 1, social changes, such as reliance on the internet for social interaction, have decreased the opportunities for communicating with other peers. This appears to negatively influence the development of children’s social and communication skills (Kobayashi & Aikawa, 1999; Ito et al,. 2014). Therefore the experiences of being involved in peer support schemes provides the opportunities for children to have direct supporting activities, which seem to effectively contribute to their emotional and cognitive development. In a sense, the peer support studies in Japan tended to focus on peer supporters’ benefits (gaining social skills), rather than benefits of users (peers) who are in distress. That is to say, the direct support activities in peer support have been viewed as the part of social skills training.
In terms of the impact of peer’s supporting activities, Miyasato (2008) indicated interesting findings about “Direct supporting activities” and “Indirect interventions”. Miyasato’s study’s aim was to identify the impact on pupils’ altruistic attitudes of participating in either direct experiential activities or indirect interventions among year 4 primary school pupils (10 year old) in Japan (see figure 2.6 and 2.7). Samples were 121 pupils in year 4 classes; 60 pupils (30 boys and 30 girls) for the indirect supporting activities and 61 pupils (35 boys and 26 girls) for the indirect interventions. In the direct supporting activities, 60 pupils were sent to a local nursery school and each pupil played together with younger children. In indirect interventions, pupils read stories and episodes of a textbook, which explained how important it is to take care of younger children (nursery school children). The study applied a pre-post test using questionnaires that measured altruistic attitudes and behaviours before and after direct and indirect interventions.


Figure 2.7: Willingness to support others

(Miyasato, 2008)

Figure 2.8: Emotional aspects for caring others

(Miyasato, 2008)

In the figures above, the results showed that pupils who had direct supporting activities (e.g. experience of physically supporting others) tend to retain the levels of altruistic attitudes after the interventions in both “willingness to support others” and “emotional aspects for caring others". This seems to imply that direct supporting activities (e.g. experience of physically supporting others) may give the stronger influences on pupils’ social behaviours and emotional developments.
In terms of Japanese practice, the Miyasato’s findings may raise the further question in the relationships between the training and supporting activities. In Japan, some programmes (e.g. Nakano, 2006) mainly focus on their skills training itself and the supporting activities are something to be carried out by children spontaneously. That is to say, supporting activities are not organised as a part of implementation of peer support programme. Other peer support programmes (e.g. Morikawa et al, 2008) focus on both training and supporting activities, and after the training, supporting activities are always organised and carried out without exception.
The social skills training involves basic social skills (see chapter 1), which cultivate children’s motivations and social skills, and these were often carried out through the role-play among peers who join the same training sessions (Ikejima & Takeuchi, 2011; Morikawa & Hishida, 2002). This means that through the simulated experiences (the role-play), pupils are able to cultivate their motivations and social skills. As the research findings showed, the majority of peer supporters mentioned the improvements in their self-esteem and sense of responsibility as the benefits to peer supporters. Also other study (Takahashi, 2010) showed that the level of self-efficacy and self–approval have significantly increased after the peer support activities. These psychological (emotional) improvements seem come from the experience of supporting others.
From the above, peer support contributes to not only improvements of children’s social skills, but also their emotional developments. In consideration of this point, peer support practices aimed to provide children with opportunities to be involved in direct supporting activities according to the Japanese style. In this vein, the wider group level of activities are encouraged in Japan which forms the current peer support structure in Japan.
2.8 Peer support as a citizenship-oriented approach

The previous sections (sections 2.7.1, 2.7.2, 2.7.3 and 2.7.4) suggested that peer support practices in Japan have been directed towards a more social skill training and citizenship-oriented approach, which seem to be different from the Rogers model peer support approach used in the western nations. From chapter 1 (section 1.8), it is clear that peer support practice in the west has been strongly based on the person-centred (Rogers model) approach, which aims to provide emotional and behavioural support to other children. On the other hand, peer support in Japan has been developed in the wider-range of activities, where some of them seem to have no relation to the person-centred approach.
In a sense, peer support practice in the West is strongly based on person-centred approach, where its training encourages the peer supporter to develop their counselling principles. For example, Carl Rogers (1957) identified the six necessary and sufficient conditions which are required to improve the effectiveness of their counselling practices. In this vein, peer supporters developed their counselling mind, which includes unconditional regard for others, and attitudes to patiently listen to other’s words (see chapter 2). Therefore, it seems to classify and call these practices as peer support in the West. In terms of the Western view, some Japanese peer support activities (e.g. anti-bullying drama, greeting campaign, fund-raising activities, and community actions) seem to not be classified as peer support practice, and these seem to be the part of citizenship-oriented activities (Warden & Christie, 1997).

Figure 2.9: Peer support practices and their necessary skills



Citizenship education and community action has been focused on development of children’s prosocial behaviours and how it can be promoted (Warden & Christie, 1997). In the area of citizenship education, prosocial behaviours are considered as socially responsible behaviours, and children have been encouraged to behave prosaically towards other children (Warden & Christie, 1997).
From figure 2.15, peer support practices, which required to apply for the counselling mind (peer counselling, befriending, peer mentoring and peer mediation) are common in the Japanese and Western peer support structures. However, in the lower range, the citizenship orientated approaches are unique to the Japanese structure (classified as peer support in Japan), which allows peer supporters to have a more active role as a group (facilitator) leader in peer-led activities. In this vein, two different qualities of peer support activities exist in Japan; one is based on the counselling mind (role as a counsellor) and the other is based on peer-led activities (role as a group leader). In short, there seemed to have two different qualities, existing in Japanese peer support activities, and both different qualities of activities were still considered as “peer support” all together.
In order to gain the deeper understanding of these diversities (counsellors’ role vs. group leaders’ role), it is necessary to investigate the details of the peer supporter’s perspectives, attitudes and behaviours in their practices. Especially, by employing semi-structured interviews, peer supporter’s lived experiences could provide rich data which would provide useful information and insight into Japanese peer support practices comprehensively. This also seems to suggest new relations between peer support activities and its training sessions. It is important that peer supporters need to be trained in appropriate training sessions in order to match the nature of their actual activities. In this sense, current peer support training sessions (Rogers’ model) seem to be inappropriate to train peer supporters who take the lead in citizenship orientated activities, such as cleaning local areas and greeting campaign.


2.9 Summing up and research gaps

The literature review is an essential part of my research project, which shows both interesting findings and conflicting findings in the West and Japan. It also reveals research gaps and issues what the researcher is trying to answer in a further step.

Firstly, in terms of the research method, Japanese studies are weak in comparison with Western studies. Some Japanese studies did not show valid research methods (e.g. no statistical test being applied) and sometimes lacked valid statistical descriptions (e.g. lack of response rate). In Japan, studies in peer support often had been conducted by school teachers rather than researchers, and this seems to weaken the validity and reliability of peer support studies. In this sense, it will be crucial that the researchers consider the validity and reliability of the study and also show the reviews and evaluations of the studies.
Secondly, there seem to be few qualitative studies that have examined peer support, especially no valid study has been reported in terms of exploring peer supporters’ feelings and perspectives through an interview. Pupils are often asked about their feelings and thoughts by structured questionnaires and/or simple structured interviews. The participant’s responses were categorised and mostly showed the frequency of each type of answers, without any analytical research methods to deepen and capture pupils’ perspectives. Both in the West and Japan, the studies tend to focus on how effective peer support programmes are, how school environments positively change, and how pupils think about peer support programmes. However, in Japan, no study reports pupils’ experiences of being peer supporters, which would provide rich data and perspectives of pupils in a qualitative research. The literature review provides the research gaps, and they will be interesting research questions to deepen the details of pupils’ perspectives.
Thirdly, the literature review indicated some conflicting findings in peer support and this provides key issues for the further research. One of the interesting conflicting findings was the effectiveness of peer support programme as an anti-bullying method. The literature showed both positive and negative results on incidence of bullying after the implementation of peer support activities. Needless to say, each study has different conditions (e.g. difference in type of peer support, the number of peer supporters, duration and frequency of activities, age, sex, catchment area, nation and culture), meaning it is difficult to generalise the effects of peer support. Also, the review of participants’ responses is an intricate part of the research. A study highlights that the majority of both user and potential users viewed the peer support programme as a useful service, even though implementation of peer support gave less influences on pupils’ bullying situations. Interestingly, even potential users who have no intentions to use peer support services themselves, still believed peer support is beneficial and would recommend it to others. It seems hard to correctly capture and translate pupils’ perspectives, meaning it is essential to employ qualitative methods to gain rich data from pupils to help deepen their thoughts and feelings as much as possible.
Finally, due to the cultural influences, the findings of peer support studies show that there are critical differences in the quality of peer support programmes between the western nations and Japan. Several forms of Japanese peer support are oriented within citizenship education, rather than the person-centred (Rogers’ model) approach adopted by Western nations. However, in general, some activities in the group, the whole school and the wider community level activities are still called “peer support” in Japan. This seems to indicate that there are critical differences in terms of peer supporters’ experiences, such as feelings, aims, attitudes, motivations, and sense of responsibilities. In this vein, by exploring the views of Japanese peer supporters in more depth, it may be interesting to know the nature of peer support in Japan, by considering cultural issues.
The literature review highlighted several research areas that have not been answered satisfactorily, due to the lack of qualitative research in Japanese peer support. Especially there was hardly any information with regards to 1) the experiences of peer supporters, 2) whether children experience any difficulties in their role as peer supporter and 3) why children adopt the role of peer supporter and what they perceive are the personal benefits of adopting this role, 4) what is the difference in peer support practices between Rogers’ model approach (role as a counsellor) and the citizenship orientated approach (role as a group leader), and 5) how cultural influences give impact on peer supporters’ attitudes, thoughts and behaviours in peer support practices. To deepen the knowledge in these unrevealed areas will provide further information on peer support study.
In order to explore the research gaps, it appeared beneficial to investigate personal and lived experience of peer supporters and how peer supporters make sense of their lived experience. By employing qualitative research methods, the study will explore Japanese children’s perspective on the experiences of being peer supporters and bridge the research gaps in the peer support literature.
2.10 Research questions

The overall aim of this research is to explore Japanese pupils’ perspectives on the experience of being peer supporters in a school. By employing Thematic Analysis through semi-structured interviews, this study will explore in-depth peer supporters’ views about key issues relating to their experiences of undertaking the role of peer supporter. The research will address the following questions:

1. 
   What are the experiences of peer supporters?
   
2. 
   What are the challenges experienced by children who adopt the peer supporter role?
   
3. 
   Why do children adopt the role of peer supporter and do they perceive any personal benefits in adopting this role?
   
4. 
   What is the difference in peer support practices between Rogers’ model approach (role as a counsellor) and the citizenship orientated approach (role as a group leader)?
   
5. 
   How cultural factors (e.g. collectivism) give influence on peer supporters’ attitudes, thoughts and behaviours in their practices.
   

CHAPTER 3

Research methodology
3.1 Background

As stated in chapter two, the present study was designed to deepen our knowledge about the experience of Japanese peer supporters. Qualitative methods have been used to gather more in-depth information about a phenomenon. The semi-structured interview allows the participants (peer supporters) to freely express their individual experiences and thoughts of being a peer supporter (Willig, 2008). As discussed in the literature review, very little Japanese research has explored the experiences of young people who practice peer support. By contrast, Western researchers have gathered a considerable amount of qualitative information about the benefits and difficulties from the perspective of peer supporters. Since the Japanese educational system is very different from the system in the West, the present research aims to fill this gap in the literature and address the aims and objectives of the research:

Aim

To explore Japanese pupils’ perspectives on the experience of being peer supporters in a school.

Objectives

1. 
   To explore the experiences of peer supporters
   
2. 
   To explore any difficulties that children might experience in their role as a peer supporter
   
3. 
   To explore why children adopt the role of peer supporter and whether they perceive any personal benefits in adopting this role
   
4. 
   To identify differences in peer support practices between Rogers’ model approach and the citizenship orientated approach.
   
5. 
   To investigate how strongly cultural factors (e.g. collectivism) give influence on peer supporters’ attitudes, thoughts and behaviours in their practices.
   

A qualitative paradigm was adopted and initially an interpretative phenomenological approach (IPA) was felt to be the most appropriate way to capture the experience of young people. Phenomenological studies aim to explore the depth, complexity and meaning of various inner states of being (Chapman & Smith, 2002). IPA is a qualitative approach which aims to explore how participants make sense of their experiences. IPA is particularly well suited to exploring topics within health, social and clinical psychology where there is a need to discern how people perceive and understand significant events in their lives (Lyons and Coyle, 2007).
IPA emphasizes the active role played by the researcher in the research process; i.e. the researcher’s interpretative activities. IPA has roots in phenomenology (Giorgi, 1995) and symbolic interactionism (Denzin, 1995), and, according to Chapman and Smith (2002, pp 126), is “a distinctive approach to conducting empirical research in psychology, offering a theoretical underpinning, a set of methodological procedures and a corpus of studies”. IPA is concerned with what the participant thinks about the topic under discussion, in this case peer support. IPA researchers are aware that this involves interpretative work. An underlying assumption is that reality cannot be separated from human experience. As Brocki and Wearden (2006) highlight, the IPA researcher attempts to access the participant’s personal world, but this depends on, and is complicated by, the researcher’s own conceptions. In other words, the term IPA refers to the joint reflections of both participants and researchers. It follows that interpretations are constrained by participants abilities to articulate their thoughts and experiences, and by the researchers’ ability to reflect and analyse (Baillie et al 2000).
In this study, the participants were secondary school aged children who had undergone JPSA training and I was the researcher interviewing those children. My background and experience is in teaching this age group.
It was clear when I commenced my study, started to conduct interviews and then began to tentatively analyse the interview data I was collecting, that a phenomenological approach was not going to be suited to my sample population for the reasons that Baille et al. (2000) have articulated (see above). It very quickly became apparent that the children were not moving beyond quite a surface-level explanation and reflection of their own views, thoughts and experiences in relation to the JPSA training they had received and then their implementation of that training. There are several possible reasons for this including the age and developmental stage of my participants, my own inexperience as a researcher, my interviewing skills and ability to analyse the data the participants were giving me. This is considered further in the results and discussion sections of my thesis. As a result, I made a decision to conduct thematic analysis of my interview data albeit maintaining an interpretive stance.
Thematic analysis is a qualitative analytic method for:

‘identifying, analysing and reporting patterns (themes) within data. It minimally organises and describes your data set in (rich) detail. However, frequently it goes further than this, and interprets various aspects of the research topic.’

(Braun and Clarke, 2006, p.79)

3.2 Theoretical underpinnings

3.2.1 Phenomenology and Hermeneutics

Essentially, I maintained a phenomenological stance and approach to my study in spite of the reasons explained above and using thematic analysis as my method of data analysis and interpretation. Phenomenology is an approach of philosophy that has a core focus of studying human experiences and also is the way in which things are perceived as they appear to consciousness (Langdridge, 2007). The philosophical concept of Phenomenology was initiated by Edmund Husserl (1856-1938) at the beginning of the twentieth century. Husserl laid the foundations for the phenomenological movement. It was later developed by Martin Heidegger (1889-1976), and other philosophers (e.g. Gadamer). This philosophical thinking has influenced many disciplines (e.g. psychology), and the phenomenological philosophical concepts have also influenced a family of phenomenological approaches (i.e. Interpretative approach, descriptive approach and narrative approach). The Phenomenological approach is concerned first and foremost with understanding people’s lived experience of the world. In this vein, Husserl argued that we should “return to the things themselves”. In Husserl’s view, in order to be able to examine and comprehend lived experience, it is necessary to step back from the natural attitude. In short, the researcher (philosopher) may have preconception about a topic, thus it is important to bracket them off in order to see the phenomenon. Of course, it is never truly possible for the researcher to be completely detached from the topic under investigation. Hence, I kept a reflective diary as I moved through the research process.

Husserl proposed that his phenomenological attitude provides a methodological process, “phenomenological reduction”. In this sense, reduction means “a leading back or redirection of thought away from its unreflective and unexamined immersion in experience of the world to the in which the world manifest itself to us” (Shinebourne, 2011). In a Heidegger’s perspective, the meaning of phenomenological description as a method lies in interpretation. Heidegger proposes hermeneutics as a prerequisite to phenomenology. The phenomenology of Dasein (which generally translates to being) is hermeneutic in the primordial signification of the word, where it designates the business of interpreting (Heidegger, 1962). Hermeneutics is the study of the interpretation theory. In terms of Smith and his colleagues’ review (2009), Schleiermacher (1768-1834), Heidegger (1889-1976) and Gadamer (1900-2002) are the first representative of the movement of hermeneutic phenomenology. For example, Gadamer (1998) viewed that understanding and interpretation are bound together and interpretation is always an evolving process, therefore, a definitive interpretation is likely never to be possible. Furthermore, Gadamer viewed that our understanding during reading is created by engaging in a dialogue between something that is old (our experiences) and something new which is the text itself (Gadamer 1990). In this sense, interpretation focus in the meaning of the text and the moment at which the interpretation is made has strongly influenced that meaning (Smith et al. 2009).
In summary, Husserl’s approach is a descriptive (phenomenological) methodology because it wants to be attentive to how things appear. By contrast, Heidegger and Gadamer’s approach is an interpretative (hermeneutic) methodology because it claims that phenomenology becomes hermeneutical when its method is taken to be interpretative rather than purely descriptive (Smith et al, 2009). Both philosophical concepts have greatly influenced its development and its process of analysis in Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis (IPA). Yet whilst IPA focuses on the unique characteristics of individuals, the idiographic focus, considered in 3.2.2, as well as patterns of meaning across individuals; thematic analysis concentrates mainly on these patterns of meaning across participants (Braun & Clarke, 2006). Of course, thematic analysis is still capable of capturing differences and divergence in data.
3.2.2 Ideography

Like Phenomenology and Hermeneutics, Ideography has influenced the development of phenomenological approaches. Allport (1897-1967) is the first person who used the term “Ideography” in English, which was originally borrowed from the writings of the German philosopher Wilhelm Windelbans (1894-1998). The ideographic approach has been summarised by Shinebourne (2011) as:

‘The ideographic approach aims for an in-depth focus on the particular and commitment to a detailed finely-textured analysis, not possible in nomothetic research studies which focus on aggregated data (Shinebourne, 2011, pp.22; Smith, 2004)
Allport strongly stated that the unique individual experience and behaviour should not be neglected by researchers. The Ideographic approach would focus on the interplay of factors which may be quite specific to the individual (Smith, 2009). In this study, I have attempted to be mindful of these individual differences and divergent cases whilst using thematic analysis rather than an IPA approach.

3.3 The relevance of a qualitative, phenomenological approach to Japanese Education

This approach acknowledges the importance of understanding the views of children and young people, and their interpretations of their experiences of educational settings. As shown in chapter two, in Japan, qualitative approaches have been neglected by researchers in favour of quantitative methods. This means that we know very little about Japanese children’s inner states, and educators often misunderstood children’s points of view. This is not unique to Japan. Smith (1996) describes tension between traditional quantitative paradigms and contemporary qualitative methods. In both Eastern and Western education much research about children has focused on the child as an object of research rather than on children’s processes of thinking, feeling and reflection (Jennifer, 2007, p.62). As a result, more recently there has been a strong movement to take account of the child as active participant in the research and as a person who has the right to be consulted and heard (Christensen & Prout, 2002). This requires a research approach that accepts the child as a moral and social being and takes account of children’s legal rights, as well as ethical issues around informed consent and rights to withdraw from the research.

3.4 Overview of Thematic Analysis

My decision to adopt thematic analysis as my method of data analysis and interpretation was outlined above (see section 3.1). In this study, thematic analysis provided a rich, thematic characterisation of my data set whilst taking into account some differences or divergences between individual participants or cases. I used a ‘bottom-up’ analytical process which made it easier to take these individual differences into account and I identified my themes at a semantic rather than a latent level (Braun & Clarke, 2006).

Braun and Clarke (2006) outline six stages to approaching thematic analysis of data which were adhered to in this study: becoming familiar with the data; generating initial codes; searching for themes; reviewing codes and themes; defining and naming themes; producing narrative results. The strength of thematic analysis is that an anecdotal approach to analysis is avoided, the themes identified require analysis rather than simple description and there must be coherence and balance between the quotes extracted and the analytical narrative, claims and interpretation (Braun & Clarke, 2006).


3.5 Research setting

The present study is set in a junior high (lower secondary) school in Osaka. This junior high school has around 700 pupils studying in the school and each year consists of 6 classes. There are 36 municipal primary and secondary (junior high) schools (24 primary and 12 junior high schools) in this city, and in the last few years, all these schools have been employing peer support programmes. In 2007, all 12 lower secondary (junior high) schools agreed to have the secondary school pupils’ summit meeting (see section 3.9.6), then, school council members from all the secondary schools occasionally gathered to hold meetings to discuss various pupils’ issues. In the summit meeting, pupils shared their own peer support activities with other school pupils and also they made some joint projects such as “bullying prevention drama”, “the pupils’ summit training camp”, and “the fund raising campaign for earthquake victims”. In this junior high school, peer support activity has been organised as one of the club activities, and the selected volunteers are trained in peer support and take a lead for various peer-led activities. This research was conducted during three semesters and consisted of one-to-one semi-structured interview with the pupils (7 males and 7 females) and implementation of peer support.

In Japan, the new school year generally starts in April, therefore, the commencement of peer support training and supporting activities was in May 2012, and one-to-one semi-structured interviewing was conducted at the beginning of April 2013, which was 11 months after the peer support scheme starts (see table 3.5). All the peer support training sessions and supporting activities were led by teachers who are qualified as a peer support trainer from JPSA. In addition, approximately 2 months prior to the one-to-one interviewing, a pilot study (interviewing 3 Japanese pupils) was conducted at the school.

Table. 3.1: Research schedule


3.6 Research sample and method

The samples were 14 lower secondary school pupils (year 8 and year 9) from a junior high school in Osaka. All of the peer supporters (in total 35 peer supporters) were invited to participate and 14 (7 males and 7 females) took part in one-to-one, semi-structured interviews. Also before conducting interviews, the author had been working with the peer supporters for 2 months. Pupils from a lower secondary school were the target samples for the following reasons:

Reasons of sample selection

(1) When considering pupils’ problems behaviours, it is the pupils from lower secondary (junior high) school age where violent behaviours and school refusals have drastically increased in Japan (Tokyo Metropolitan Board of Education, 2011)

(2) In Japan, the percentage of bystanders has gradually increased with age, and 15-year-old make up the greatest proportion (more than 60%). Also, in Japan, the percentage of pupils who intervene in bullying, decreased with age and 15 years olds made up the smallest proportion around 20%. (Morita et al, 1999)
(3) Japanese literature lacks the qualitative research, which concern with the in-depth exploration personal and lived experience of individual and with how pupils are making sense of that lived experience. Especially the details of pupils’ perspectives (peer supporters’ perspectives) seem to be research gaps, which need to be researched.
Observation by the author

After receiving the training sessions, all peer supporters were supposed to be engaged into the following activities throughout the year.
Figure 3.1: Peer supporters’ duties and activities throughout the year


During the author’s stay (about two months from February to April), the author had joined the following activities as an observer, such as cleaning activities, greeting campaign, school summits and nationwide school summits. Unfortunately, fund-raising activities and anti-bullying dramas were already finished in September and October (2012), therefore, the author was not able to see and join them. Also the author was not able to join peer counselling and befriending, because, there was no telling when one-to-one support (peer counselling and befriending) may happen.
3.7 Access and recruitment

In order to access potential participants, the author contacted the head teacher by an email, which included the information letter (consent form). The letter outlines the aims and methods of the research activities in the school. Also the author had telephone conversation with the head teacher to explain the key aspects of the research activities. After receiving the permission from the head teacher, the author and the teacher teachers in charge of peer support programme discussed the nature of research and the best strategies for implementation of research activities in the school.

Regarding informed consent, consent to participate was sought at two levels, from the head teacher on behalf of the school staff, and from the pupils themselves. After receiving permission from the head teacher, pupils were given the opportunity to ask the author about the research at the introduction session or assembly (see appendix 2 for the consent forms for head teacher and peer supporters).

3.8 Research tools

Semi-structured interviews are fundamental to thematic analysis. In depth interviews allow for a detailed exploration of the topic, in this case children’s experience as peer supporters. They also provide personal information, individual experiences, feelings, emotions, and personal meanings (Chapman & Smith, 2002; Lincoln & Guba, 1985). Open-ended questions enable the researcher to capture the participants’ point of view without imposing his own opinion. Semi-structured interviews are flexible and give participants the opportunities to express their views and experiences in ways that the researchers did not expect. To meet the aim and objective of this study, the questions were developed through the pilot study (see section 3.9).

3.9 Pilot study

A pilot study is a small scale trial, which intends to assess the adequacy of the research design for the data collection. It plays an important role to assess the ways of the data collection instruments, to gauge the length of time of interviewing, and to investigate whether the questions are properly understood by the participants (Sapsford & Jupp, 2006). For these reasons, the samples of the pilot study need to be selected from the population which the main study covers. The pilot study of the current study was carried out in the beginning of February 2013. The participants were 3 peer supporters who were selected by a teacher from the same school, where the main interviews were to be carried out.