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1500 Word Critical Reflection

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Introduction

I run a dialogue-based lifelong learning programme promoting self-development and social engagement in Japan. Over 200 people have participated in the programme for the past three years. The alumni and I have spent time sharing sensitive things, such as personal trauma, during the programme and have developed a solid relationship where we can discuss any topic without hesitation. Through this educational intervention, I tried to enhance the relationship between these alumni (Japanese adults) and the Palestinians, who are suffering from the ongoing war. I expected the people involved to raise their political voices, change awareness toward the Palestinians, and start to take action after the intervention. 

The reason to interfere is mainly based on two points. The first is the Japanese people’s avoidance of politics. According to the survey conducted by the Japanese Cabinet (2018), the percentage of Japanese youth who said they were interested in politics was 43.5%, the lowest of all participating countries. Another research suggested its background as apathy and fear of harming others (Okamoto, 2004). Toyama et al. (2022) pointed out that this restraint may reduce the quality and degree of citizens’ voices reflected in policy. However, in other words, encouraging citizens to raise their voices and participate actively in political activities can improve policy. The second reason for the intervention is the possibility of sharing realities to move the public, inspired by Osman’s (2017) article. Just as how black people suffered terrible discrimination was spread all over the world through videos, which led to the huge movement of “Black Lives Matter”, I thought sharing the realities of how citizens are suffering in Palestine would have also had an impact on the awareness of Japanese people.

Intervention Design 

In this intervention, it was evaluated as an enhancement in the relationship if the awareness or behaviour towards Palestinians changed between before and after the intervention. In addition to sharing the realities, the design was focused on “listening” which could invoke people’s self-confidence to take action, inspired by Murdoch et al.’s (2020) article. Furthermore, other psychological theories were utilised to enhance the relationship. 

Outline

Intervention method: 90-minute online session (date of implementation: 6/12/2023 8:00 pm – 9:30 pm JST)

Target group: graduates of the lifelong learning programme in Japan 

Number of participants: 6

Characteristics of participants: 

To ensure the effectiveness, two considerations were taken into account in the initial setting. The first was to narrow down the range of participating graduates. The number of participants was limited to ensure that each individual had enough time to speak up and create a situation where they felt listened to. Also, only the participants who had attended the programme at the same time were invited. Given the cultural context in which it is difficult to talk about politics, I thought the group which had higher ‘psychological safety’ (Edmondson, 1999), a shared belief in being more secure against interpersonal risk-taking, was ideal. Second was to keep the level of ‘listening’ and ‘psychological safety’ as high as possible. I asked participants to concentrate on listening, refrain from speaking while the others were talking, and be considerate when interrupting. In addition, I recomended them to reserve judgment of right or not during the session to create tolerance for failure, which is said to increase psychological safety.

Assessment

The relationship status was labelled 1-5 in order to ascertain whether the relationship had increased before and after the session beforehand. Participants were asked to answer which level they were in before and after the session and the background of their status. 

1: Not interested in
2: Interested in but not doing anything
3: Interested in and take action just by themselves
4: Interested in and take action with close people, such as family and friends
5: Interested in and engage in activities with an unspecified number of people, such as taking a part in protests, spreading information on social media

Session content

Timeline
1. Introduction (mainly explanation of the purpose and overview of the session)
2. Ice-breaker
3. Input on the current situation in Palestine
4. Sharing impressions and questions from participants
5. Suggestion of actions that can be taken

6. Sharing thoughts and future actions from participants

The time for participants to speak up was most prioritised over the session. Although attendees were close with each other, I prepared the ice-break time for them to speak up equally to reestablish psychological safety (Edmondson, 1999) because some of them had not talked with recently. Even in the section on input, I provided them with chances to raise their voices by adopting a quiz format. Referring to Osman’s paper (2017), it was also designed to give an impact on participants by sharing realities that everyone would have gotten emotional and found awful, such as young children being badly injured or murdered. I then took the time to ask them to share their thoughts and questions about Palestine that came to their mind, before suggesting actions aligning with the assessment level of 3-5. Based on self-determination theory (Ryan & Deci, 2000), I did not force them to choose or implement actions but encouraged them to tell me what they really wanted to do, allowing them to decide not to address it.

* The slide of the session, including the video (Japan News Network, 2023) to show the realities in Palestine

Implementation

The intervention resulted in 66% (4/6) of the participants making progress of relationship and reaching to the level 4; 33% (2 alumni) showed no change before and after the intervention (male in his 50s in level 3 and female in her 20s in level 4) and 1 alum (female in her 20s, level 2 to 4) showed a change of two stages.

*The numbers on the graph are the number of people

Here are comments from the participants;

Pre-session

Level 2

“I am interested in what happens to Palestinians but procrastinated to gather information” (2 comments)

Level 3

“I’ve gotten interested in it by my friend’s action and went to watch a film about the Palestinians recently.”

“I’ve gotten interested in it and attended the talk show about Palestinians” (2 comment)

Level 4

“Sometimes I have a discussion and think about what to do with my friends.”


Post-session

Level 3

“I realised that there is information that I cannot get only from Japanese news, so I will try to go and see news from other countries and get information from various perspectives.” (2 comments)

Level 4

“I will try to talk about what we discussed today with my family or friends.”(4 comments)

Discussion and possible future research

Analysis of the contribution level of each factor

There must be many factors behind the above results. Which of the measures taken have been the most effective? And were there factors that were not intended but actually had an effect? The hypothesis that emerged during the session is that the presence of friends who have taken action already. One of the participant said that he had gotten interested in Palestinian issues by his friend, who was taking continuous action such as attending the protests with feeling hesitation. In fact, Campos & Martins (2023) mentioned that young people are more likely to become activists if their friends are activists.

Change the context

The context was limited in this case to graduates of one specific lifelong learning programme, so the results would change when conducted in other contexts, even they are still Japanese. In the current intervention, 75% (3/4) of those who reached level 4 were in their 20s, whereas the stage of person in his 50s did not change at level 3. I hypothesise that age would have an impact on the relationship and xx said the age and the avoidance of politics had the positive correlation. It may also be possible to analyse to which cultural contexts are more or less effective, comparing to contexts in other countries.

Change in survey methodology

No one progressed to the highest stage 5 in this intervention. Yamada (2016) said Japanese people tend to become non-active when their behaviours could affect an unspecified number of people, and there seems to be a psychological hurdle between the level 4 and 5. His survey of 48 countries noted low rates of participation in political civic activities (boycotts (44th), demonstrations (42nd) and strikes (33rd)). Is there any theory to move people to the level 5? This may be achieved by the longer-term engagement with participants and the intervention while incorporating the aforementioned influences by friends.

Conclusion

Although this intervention was conducted in a limited setting, it can be said to have succeeded in enhancing the relationship because approximately 70% people increased the level of relationship and reached to the level 4. I believe it contributed to mitigating the avoidance of politics, leading to better policy in Japan. Furthermore, if this session setting were replaced by a school classroom setting, it would be a good example that teachers could promote the educational result of students not only teaching but also listening.

The photo of the header: Taken by Ahmed Abu Hameeda (Unsplash) 

Reference:

Japanese Cabinet. (2018). [Survey on the attitudes of young people in Japan and other 6 countries] Wagakuni to shogaikoku no wakamono no ishiki ni taisuru chosa (in Japanese). Ssjda.iss.u-Tokyo.ac.jp. https://ssjda.iss.u-tokyo.ac.jp/Direct/gaiyo.php?lang=jpn&eid=1302. P.18.

Okamoto, H. (2004). [Why do we avoid talking about politics?] Seiji no hanashi wa tabu nanoka? (in Japanese). Www.crs.or.jp. https://www.crs.or.jp/backno/old/No557/5571.htm

Toyama, K., Kawabata, Y., & Fujii, S. (2022). [Psychological research on Japanese people’s avoidance of political participations] Nihonjin no sekkyokutekiseijssanka wo kihisuru shinritekikeikou ni kansuru kenkyu (in Japanese). 土木学会論文集D3（土木計画学）, 77(5), I_213–I_223. https://doi.org/10.2208/jscejipm.77.5_I_213

Osman, W. (2017). 15. Jamming the Simulacrum. Culture Jamming, 348–364. https://doi.org/10.18574/nyu/9781479850815.003.0020

Murdoch, D., English, A. R., Hintz, A., & Tyson, K. (2020). Feeling Heard : Inclusive Education, Transformative Learning, and Productive Struggle. Educational Theory, 70(5), 653–679. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12449

Edmondson, A. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999

Ryan, R., & Deci, E. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. Psycnet.apa.org. https://psycnet.apa.org/record/2000-13324-007

Japan News Network. (2023, November 7). [Gaza is a “graveyard” for children] Gaza wa kodomotachi no hakaba(in Japanese). Www.youtube.com. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8Q_1ZHFpYk

Campos, R., & Martins, J. (2023). Political socialisation narratives of young activists. Contexts, settings, and actors. Journal of Youth Studies, 1–17. https://doi.org/10.1080/13676261.2023.2224742

Yamada, M. (2016). [Political participation and democracy] Seijisanka to minshu syugi (in Japanese). In www.utp.or.jp. University of Tokyo Press. https://www.utp.or.jp/book/b307141.html

 



Revised Experimental Educational Intervention Design

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Context

The alumni community of the lifelong education programme

I run a dialogue-based lifelong learning programme promoting self-development and social engagement in Japan. More than 200 people have participated in the programme, and many are highly motivated to learn and want to contribute to society. Because we spent time sharing sensitive inner feelings during the programme, we have a solid relationship, allowing us to discuss any topic without hesitation.

Relationship to be enhanced by the intervention

The relationship of the alumni (Japanese adults) with Palestinian victims of the current war

A few weeks ago, I heard directly from Palestinian refugees in Edinburgh about what their homeland and families are going through right now, which has pushed me to take daily actions to stop the war, such as sharing what I heard on Instagram and participating in the demonstrations. Through the intervention, I want the alumni also to take action to help Palestinian victims.

Method of intervention and assumed impact

I will share what happens in Palestine with the alumni, listen carefully to their impressions and suggest practical ways to help the victims. After this intervention, I expect them to start thinking more about how to help Palestinians and take action in their lives.

Detail of the intervention

I will organise a casual online session with five graduates. Focusing on listening will be set as a ground rule. I will ask the participants to stay polite if they want to ask questions or cut in while others talk. *In order to listen deeply to each member, I will limit the number of participants.

1. I will present what I heard directly from the Palestinian refugees in Edinburgh about the current local situation and what is happening to their families, with photos and videos which have never been broadcasted in Japanese major media.

E.g., The YouTube videos reporting the devastating effect of war on Gaza’s children

2. I will ask each alum to share their impression of what I shared. The members who are not in their turns will concentrate on listening.

3. I will share the ways for the alumni to take action for Palestinian victims.

The readings by Osman (2017) and Murdoch et al. (2020)  inspired this idea. Even though the current war is nothing but misery and great pain for the local people, it is unrealistic and not a daily topic for most Japanese people. Mr Setooka, a previous professor at Komazawa University, introduces two reasons in his interview (2020): the highly safe environment to reduce the sense of urgency to the war and the strong fear of conflict with others triggered by political talk.

In response to this situation, I will try to change the alumni’s attitude by sharing real and shocking conditions that would cause mental and physical reactions. I will also provide a safe environment where people feel their opinions will be listened to, invoking their self-confidence to take action.

 

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Reference:

Osman, W. (2017, February 28). Log in – Your University Login – The University of Edinburgh. Www.ease.ed.ac.uk. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/ed/detail.action?pq-origsite=primo&docID=4500691

Murdoch, D., English, A. R., Hintz, A., & Tyson, K. (2020). Feeling Heard : Inclusive Education, Transformative Learning, and Productive Struggle. Educational Theory, 70(5), 653–679. https://doi.org/10.1111/edth.12449

SOCIO. (2020, January 21). [Why is the political discussion taboo in Japanese society?] Naze seiji no hanashi ha taboo nanoka?(in Japanese). Newscast.jp. https://newscast.jp/news/273555

The photo was taken by Levi Meir Clancy from Unsplash