(很可惜,因為超了字數,刪去了「電影例子」那部份。
但趕了整個星期,厭得差點想撕掉,現在暫無心力重新整理了。)
The Japanese word for bullying, “Ijime”, was defined by Morita (1997) as “aggressive behavior by which someone holds a dominant position in a group-interaction process, by intentional or collective acts, causes mental and/or physical suffering to another inside a group.”
Ijime has been a serious educational and social problem in Japan, arousing public concern since the 1980s. In 1985, 155,066 bullying incidents occurred in elementary and high schools (Kobayashi, 1999). Some victims even committed suicide. Over 80% students acknowledged bullying in class (Morita, 1995). This paper identifies and discusses bullying types, roles involved, and possible causes.
Types of Ijime / Bullying
Nihon (1995) reported three major types of bullying in Japanese campus, i.e. psychological, physical and violent.
I. Psychological Bullying
Teasing
The most popular form of ijime is teasing, which involves perpetrators making fun of victims at the victims’ expense, and is different from joking which can be beneficial for both parties and improve relationships. Unfortunately, adults always perceive teasing as harmless jokes, hence invalidates victims’ recognition of incidents, doubt about their accuracy of interpretation, and render them at greater risk for an escalation of teasing.
Ostracism / Isolation / Exclusion / Segregation
This is a worse scenario but the second most common form of ijime in which victims are excluded from every class activities. No one play with them during recess or after school. Classmates ignore victims as if they do not exist. For example, there is no response but only discriminating looks whenever victims greet their classmates. Usually students formed into group based on common bullying target, with leaders and core members designing bullying plans. Some may pretend to be victims’ friend for monitoring. Mock funeral is also common, in which victims are harassed and threatened by white flowers, a metaphor of death.
II. Physical Bullying
Hiding possessions or Thefts
Bullies might hide or steal victims’ textbooks, shoes or other belongings, which cause monetary loss and inconveniences. Thefts are illegal, however bullies can justify themselves as joking only. Victims are also afraid of further revenge and remain silent or simply blame themselves to be forgetful.
Desecration / Defacement
Bullies might destroy victims’ belongings. For instance, perpetrators put nails onto the victims’ shoes, put garbage into his drawing, crossed out contents of his textbooks, spilt dirt onto his meals, and even burned his desk.
III. Violent Bullying
Destruction
Perpetrators might attack and physically harm victims. They may lock up victims in storage rooms, force them to mock wrestling match, and blindfold them to beat, or even burn their hair or arm with cigarettes. They would extend their legs and make him fall down when walking among the chairs in the classroom. They even intimidated weaker students to beat the victim. As a result, victim always ended up going to the sick room, hospital, or even eventually death.
Ijime / Bullying roles
Morita and Kiyonago (1996) found four main roles in bullying occurred in group setting.
I. Victims
In contemporary bullying, anybody in class could be a victim and bullies are not usually labeled as bad students by teachers. Sometime both have high academic ranking and positive image. Victims do not often report the bullying to parents, fearing that parent’s immediate reaction of contacting the school would possibly provoke further isolation from the group dynamic and escalation of bullying. They are also reluctant to discuss ijime with teachers due to further isolation. They may perceive the lack of response by school officials as their unwillingness to take the victims’ feelings into consideration, and gradually become reluctant to attend classes, i.e. claiming illness in morning to avoid school.
II. Bullies
Hara (2002) found that most perpetrators are likely to blame the victims and justify their bullying. Boys were more likely than girls to blame the victims, while girls were more likely than boys to deny that victims get hurt by bullying. As a result, there are irreparable moral harm to the perpetrators, like nightmare and guiltiness. Bullying adolescents may also grow into adults who foster intolerance and injustice in their communities.
III. Audience
They view bullying as a spectacle with amusement and enjoying watching them, or even cheer the bullies, which in turn support and encourages the bullies and leaves the victim in a more isolated situation. Their response mainly formed the climate in class, i.e. classmates would not want to include or reach out to help victims. It leads to rejection of responsibility.
IV. Bystanders
They observe and may even sympathize with the victim, but do not usually stop the ijime, because they prefer not to get involved. Besides students, school officials and teachers may also be bystanders. School officials do not want to admit bullying incidents occurred within their schools, and even realize, they prefer to resolve privately without outside agencies’ involvement. Also, teachers’ promotion is based on their success of maintaining the standard of the specific school, even a favorable response and resolution of an ijime case could be viewed as a demerit just because it occurred. It leads teachers to act as bystanders and do not exercise their responsibility o intervene to end the situation. Parents and some teachers may even not aware of the situation, and simply blame the victims.
Possible Reasons for Ijime / Bullying
I. Society and Culture Factors
Collectiveness is a Japanese fundamental value; emphasizing group benefits overcome individuals’. Groups either force members to be like each other, i.e. inclusion with assimilation, or exclude members who cannot adopt or do not confront.
Moreover, children learn from the society’s competitive and violent cultures which reinforce their belief in violence and force as an effective mean to achieve goals. For example, governmental use of force, threat of force, and demonstration of superior forces, and large corporate cultures.
II. Japanese Educational System
Traditional Japanese educational philosophy is not to intervene in children’s peer relations, and children should govern themselves. It makes teachers and parents hesitate to intervene.
Japan’s rapid industrialization resulted in societal stress and demanded a well-trained workforce. The education system was drastically altered and emphasis on extreme competition and controlled education. Children have been forced to study hard. Extreme competition on entrance examinations have bad influence on children’s personality development, while contemporary children lack enough playing and interaction with family members.
Conclusion
Contemporary bullying is usually invisible to adults and continues over a long period of time. Children learn to bully from adults’ competitive and aggressive practices. In a collective society like Japan, violation of group values may cause bullying. However, as group membership is crucial for social survival, the ostracism bullying represents a particularly mean and cruel form of punishment. Isolated individuals feel as if the central core of their being were degraded or lost as a result of exclusion.
Furthermore, peer bullying is always a vicious cycle. When victims are replaced by other, they may turn into perpetrators. Bullied experience may make previous victims become cruel and numb, and transit their anger and suffering onto other victims. Such cycle may be forced at first in some cases, but when ex-victims find power and pleasure from bullying others, they may formulate more bullying behavior and force others to continue. Hence, new perpetrators are even crueler and lead to more bullying. Hence, bullying in schools is an urgent problem. The Japanese school system needs to determine concrete school-wide anti-bullying intervention solutions. (1217 words)
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