Japanese children's perspectives on the - Surrey Research Insight ...

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|The nature of peer support through Japanese children's |
|perspectives on the |
|experiences of being peer supporters |
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|by |
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|Hideo Kato |
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|A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for |
|the Degree of |
|Doctor of Philosophy |
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|Faculty of Health & Medical Sciences |
|University of Surrey |
|2016 |
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Abstract
This thesis explores the nature of peer support activities in Japan through
the experiences of young Japanese peer supporters in a secondary school.
Peer support is an approach that builds on the helpfulness and altruism
characteristic of friendship by extending it beyond friendship to the wider
peer group. Although moral and citizenship education has been carried out
for over one hundred years in Japanese schools, the concept of peer support
programmes in the educational system is relatively new in Japan. Peer
support approaches have been developing in Western countries for over 20
years but it is only in the past 10 years that there has been a growing
interest in these methods in Japan. In this research, qualitative methods
had been used to gather more in-depth information about a phenomenon.
Participants, aged 13 to 14 years, were drawn from a secondary school in
Osaka, Japan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data were
analysed using Thematic Analysis, aiming to explore their lived experiences
of being peer supporters. Four main themes emerged from the peer
supporters' lived experiences; 1) Disconnection between training and
practice, 2) Perceived generation gap, 3) Self-improvement, and 4) Cultural
mismatch. These specific themes greatly assisted to explore the unrevealed
children's views, some critical issues of peer support practices in Japan
and some confirmed the findings of quantitative studies (prior studies). A
number of the findings were novel and also these results will provide
opportunity to explore further children's understandings of peer support
programmes in school. In conclusion, some practical recommendations (e.g.
"reform of the peer support training session" and "new classification for
Japanese style peer support") for the peer support activities are suggested
in terms of the findings. Key words:
peer support, bullying, counselling skills, social skills, Japanese style
peer support.
Summary This thesis adopts a qualitative approach to explore the nature of peer
support activities in Japan through the experiences of young Japanese peer
supporters in a secondary school. Peer support, a relatively new concept in
Japan, is an approach that builds on the helpfulness and altruism
characteristic of friendship by extending it beyond friendship to the wider
peer group. This often encourages children to offer other children strong
emotional and behavioural support. Since the peer support approach had been
introduced to Japan, several peer support practices have been developed as
unique methods, which were suited to Japanese educational and traditional
systems. Although peer support has been quite extensively researched in the West
using both quantitative and qualitative methods, which explored children's'
views and their behaviours, Japanese researchers mainly employed
quantitative approaches with various assessment sheets and questionnaires
to examine how peer support systems have a positive influence on children
(e.g. the improvement of their social skills and the satisfaction levels in
school life). In short, very little Japanese research explored the
experiences of young people who practiced peer support by employing
qualitative methods that captured their thoughts and feelings in depth.
This resulted in a very limited knowledge about children's own views and
insights, including their views on the peer support systems, their
difficulties, feelings and motivations for the peer support activities. In
this vein, the present study has contributed to deepening the knowledge in
these unrevealed research topics and issues. Participants, aged 13 to 14 years, were drawn from a secondary school in
Osaka, Japan. Semi-structured interviews were conducted, and data were
analysed using Thematic Analysis, aiming to explore their lived experiences
of being peer supporters. Four main themes emerged from the peer supporters' lived experiences; 1)
Disconnection between training and practice, 2) Perceived generation gap,
3) Self-improvement, and 4) Cultural mismatch. These specific themes
greatly assisted to explore the unrevealed children's views, some critical
issues of peer support practices in Japan and some confirmed the findings
of quantitative studies (prior studies). For example, one of the critical findings highlighted that there were major
gaps and disconnections between peer supporters' actual activities and
their training sessions, which have not been reported as an issue in
Japanese peer support studies. In short, even though Japanese peer
supporters received the same style training sessions (Rogers model; person-
centred approach), they did not manage to apply the person-centred
attitudes for their activities. In this vein, peer supporters were mainly
involved in activities at group and whole-school support levels (e.g.
greeting campaign, cleaning campaign, and fund-raising activity), due to
the educational needs and cultural backgrounds. This implied that some peer
support activities in Japan seemed to be critically different from the
western style peer support approach, which was based on the person-centred
approach. A number of the findings were novel and also these results will provide
opportunity to explore further children's understandings of peer support
programmes in school. In conclusion, some practical recommendations (e.g.
"reform of the peer support training session" and "new classification for
Japanese style peer support") for the peer support activities are suggested
in terms of the findings. It appears that several peer support practices
had been developed as unique methods; thus, further studies, employing a
qualitative approach are required to gain the deeper understanding of peer
support practices, which contribute to the improvements and developments of
its practices in Japan. Signed declaration This thesis and the work to which it refers are the results of my own
efforts. Any idea, data, image or text resulting from the work of others
are fully identified as such within the work and attributed to their
originator in the bibliography or in footnotes. This thesis has not yet
been submitted in whole or in part for any other academic degree or
professional qualification. Name: Hideo Kato
Signature: [pic]
Date: 11 May 2016
Table of Contents
Summary
..............................................................................
............ 2
Signed
declaration..................................................................
........... 5
Table of
contents.....................................................................
.......... 6
Acknowledgements............................................................
................ 12
1. CHAPTER ONE
Introduction................................................................
........ 13
1.1 Background to the
research............................................................
13
1.2 Moral education and citizenship in
Japan.......................................... 21
1.3 The discovery of peer
support.........................................................