This paper examines the concept of respect — and its troubling decline — in the classrooms of the United States, Japan, and China. Drawing on research in moral education, youth violence statistics, and cultural sociology, it traces how each nation approaches character education and what consequences follow when that education falls short. The paper documents rising rates of bullying, cyberbullying, and school violence in the United States, surveys Japan's long-standing but recently strained system of moral instruction, and explores China's growing juvenile crime problem. It concludes by arguing that all three nations can learn from one another in crafting multi-pronged strategies to restore respect and reduce violence in schools.
The paper demonstrates effective use of comparative analysis across cultures. Rather than arguing that one nation's approach is superior, it identifies what each country does well and where each struggles, then synthesizes the findings into a multi-pronged policy recommendation. This "lessons learned" comparative method is a hallmark of strong cross-cultural education research.
The paper opens with a rhetorical introduction invoking the Golden Rule, then defines respect as a theoretical construct. It proceeds country-by-country — United States, Japan, China — using a consistent two-part structure within each section: background context followed by current challenges. A concluding section synthesizes findings and offers concrete recommendations spanning legal, psychological, familial, and programmatic interventions. Works Cited entries follow MLA format throughout.
"The function of education is to teach one to think intensively and to think critically... Intelligence plus character — that is the goal of true education." — Martin Luther King Jr.
There was a time in the United States when you could walk into a classroom of fourth graders and, if you asked them what the Golden Rule was, they would respond in kind: "To do unto others as you would have done unto yourself." Walk into a classroom of fourth graders today, and the vast majority of students would probably ask whether it was a TV show or a video game. Unfortunately, it appears that the principle behind the Golden Rule has somehow been left behind. Are we, as Americans, simply too busy? Is it because Apple has not yet invented an application for the Golden Rule? Is there any way to bring the Golden Rule back to our lives and the lives of our children — and, specifically, into our classrooms? Do other countries such as China and Japan have similar issues in educating their youth?
This paper examines the notion of respect, which underlies the Golden Rule, in a comparative sense — looking at respect among youth in the classrooms of the United States, China, and Japan — with the purpose of seeing where each culture stands and what each culture might be able to learn from the others.
Respect is defined as "commonly the result of admiration and approbation, together with deference." Admiration, approbation, and deference are character traits we are not necessarily born with; indeed, these are traits that may be acquired, enhanced, or lost through one's personal growth process as well as through education and socialization. As such, there is no denying that respect as a construct is a combination of natural and acquired conditions, and it may therefore be categorized among the behaviors that individuals learn, acquire, or lose through their experiences and knowledge of the world. Moreover, respect has been noted as "the single most powerful ingredient in nourishing relationships and creating a just society" (Lawrence-Lightfoot 13).
However, there has been very little systematic research on this topic. Parents, educators, researchers, children, and adolescents in many societies all note with alarm a growing problem of disrespect and a decline in respect for self and others. Given that this is not an isolated concern within any one nation's borders, perhaps by examining the patterns that exist in different societies under different norms, concerned educators, students, practitioners, and parents can learn from one another in order to bring back a more respectful classroom and, in a larger sense, a more humane world.
Today's students in classrooms in the United States are not only declining in the test scores they produce, but they are also declining in exhibiting basic respect toward each other and toward their teachers. When interviewed, there is a commonality among both private and public educators in the United States. In a speech delivered to Columbia University, Langdon Winner succinctly summarized the sentiment of American educators regarding how students treat each other: "…[T]he atmosphere of negativity in student subcultures, far from being a minor annoyance, has become one of the most serious barriers to teaching and learning that they have to confront each day, filling much of the social space in the halls and classrooms" (Winner, 2000). As a direct result of disrespect in the classroom, a report by Public Agenda entitled "Teaching Interrupted" found that behavior problems translate into students having less time to learn — partly because the teacher uses class time to discipline a few troublemakers, but also because those troublemakers create an atmosphere that is not focused on learning. When asked about the reason for students' misbehavior, disrespect was confirmed as the number one cause by 73% of teachers and 68% of parents (The Washington Times).
Despite the fact that teachers, students, and experts alike recognize a lack of respect as a driving force behind lost instructional opportunity, the United States has become preoccupied with content coursework over moral character education. Some districts are implementing programs that infuse morals into the educational day; however, unlike many other industrialized nations such as Japan, the United States does not have a national uniform policy for implementing moral education in its schools (Kilpatrick, 1992). The data regarding how disrespect has manifested itself in violent and abusive behavior among students and against teachers provides compelling evidence of the need to bring morals back to the forefront of the school day and the core curriculum.
In addition to students routinely behaving in ways that exhibit baseline disrespect toward others, disrespect in the United States also translates into more egregious and harmful acts such as bullying, violence, and suicide. Federal education statistics reveal that between 1996 and 2000, 599,000 violent crimes against teachers at school were reported. On average, in each year during that period, approximately 28 out of every 1,000 teachers became a victim of a violent crime while teaching at school, and three out of every 1,000 were victims of serious violent crime — such as rape, sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated assault — by a student (Stix). American schools in recent decades have also witnessed an enormous amount of student-on-student violence. From 1983 to 1993, an epidemic of violent and often lethal behavior broke out across the country. As a result, millions of young people and their families had to cope with injury, disability, and death, and the nation had to begin examining the loss of morality, tolerance, and respect among its young people (Laub and Cook).
Students are also disrespectful toward each other in ways that demean, degrade, or threaten violence. According to the National Youth Violence Prevention Resource Center, almost 30% of youth in the United States — or over 5.7 million young people — are involved in bullying, either as a bully, a target, or both (Winner). Traditionally, bullying has involved hitting or punching (physical bullying), teasing or name-calling (verbal bullying), or intimidation through gestures or social exclusion. However, technology has given children and youth a new means of bullying one another. Cyberbullying is the term used to describe online or electronic bullying, and it includes sending mean, threatening, or vulgar messages or images; posting sensitive or private information about another person; pretending to be someone else to make that person look bad; and ignoring someone within an online group (Willard).
Despite this reduction in violent crimes, incidents of cyberbullying and fear among ethnic minorities are presently on the rise (United States). Furthermore, the number of teachers leaving the profession as a result of stress caused by disrespect and violence in schools has been significant, remaining constant at approximately one-third of teachers citing students' disrespectful behavior as a reason for leaving (The Washington Times). Accordingly, the United States is still struggling with students exhibiting basic respect toward each other and their teachers. With the advent of technology, a new medium for disrespect — cyberbullying — has emerged and has yet to be adequately addressed. Additionally, neither the attrition rate for new teachers nor the problem of fear among ethnic students has been meaningfully reduced.
Speaking of Asian societies generally, Quynh Nguyen noted in the Minnesota Daily newspaper, "In Asian society, students revere teachers for the simple fact that knowledge is power and that it is generous of teachers to share it" (Hoenig, 2008). In Japan, morals have always been a critical part of the school curriculum, reinforcing the moral development already occurring in the home (Id.). While this has made some difference, it is presently unclear how effective Japan's moral education has been in the face of a recent surge in violent behavior among Japanese youth.
The current goal of Japanese moral education is to allow "the spirit of human respect" to "penetrate the life of family, school and society" (Takahashi, 1988). For most of Japan's educational history — except for the years during which the United States advised its curriculum — Japan has taught moral education as a separate, content-based course. However, Japan did not limit this instruction to designated class time; rather, "proper instruction for moral development should be given, not only in the hours for Moral Education, but also in the hours for each Subject and Special activities…" (The Course of Study, Elementary School, 1989). The values taught in Japan do not have theological derivations; instead, they are social values concerning the behavioral consequences of personal attitudes. Specifically, Japanese moral education emphasizes: (1) respect for life, (2) the relationship between the individual and a group, and (3) a sense of "vertical order" (Ikemoto, 1996). Importantly, it is easier to teach these values in Japan because the philosophy of schools and the values of families rest on the same philosophical principles; the school does not seek to supplant home teaching but rather to reinforce it (Id.).
Given the profound difference between the approaches to moral education taken by the United States and Japan, does Japan enjoy greater respect in its classrooms? Japanese teachers do experience far fewer disruptions stemming from disrespectful behavior, and therefore a greater portion of the school day is devoted to instruction rather than discipline (Lewis). Students in Japan regard the school as an extension of their parents' expectations and therefore enter the classroom already predisposed to respect the teacher.
Three critical notions are embedded in the Japanese child's psyche from early in life: group-mindedness, consensual decision-making, and ritualized speechmaking. These attributes help Japanese students succeed in the classroom. For instance, a Japanese mother employs the group-mindedness concept from infancy when scolding a child by emphasizing that the behavior is embarrassing and that others are watching. Some call this "conformity training," and it is reinforced throughout the child's education through projects requiring teamwork and cooperative activities (Clancy). Consensual decision-making is also embedded in classroom practice: after a student answers a teacher's question, the teacher does not comment immediately but instead asks other students to evaluate the response. Only at the end of this exchange does the teacher provide input — a structure that supports the consensual decision-making process (Anderson). Ritualized speechmaking begins early in Japanese education, where students are taught that responses should resemble mini-speeches; when called upon, students must stand up straight and answer in formulaic expressions with loud, clear voices. The predictability built into this practice reduces the child's inclination toward impromptu commentary (White), and this ritualized performance appears to be a prerequisite for personal expression (Anderson). As students progress through school, learned interaction patterns and role expectations support an orderly environment, with high school students coming to view the teacher as an authoritative lecturer and themselves as attentive listeners (Anderson). All of these norms are embedded into the instructional system, with students learning proper behavioral roles at home that are reinforced in elementary school and practiced through graduation.
While incidents of off-task behavior in Japan are far less frequent than in the United States, Japan, the United States, and China share one troubling commonality: all three nations have experienced a sudden surge in youth violence, both on and off campus. In the past decade, incidents of violence on school grounds in Japan increased fivefold. Violence by younger children has risen particularly rapidly, with the number of minors under 14 processed for violent crime increasing 47% between 2002 and 2003. One study by a children's research institute found that as many as 30% of high school and middle school students had experienced sudden acts of rage at least once a month. As a result of this sharp rise in youth crime, Japan lowered the age of criminal prosecution in 2001 from 16 to 14 and has since considered lowering it further.
Given this recent outburst of violent behavior by young people both on and off campuses, it seems critical that Japan investigate why these individuals committed such acts. Did they possess a moral code and somehow "know better" but were unable to act on it? Or is the moral code still being taught in the same way as in previous generations — and if so, does the instructional method hinder rather than help students internalize the critical values within Japan's moral education curriculum? Furthermore, since Japan is currently experiencing the kind of youth violence surge that the United States witnessed between 1996 and 2006 — a period during which the United States has since seen a downturn in serious youth violence — perhaps Japan can learn from the United States' concerted effort to confront this problem.
The present situation — in which high levels of violence have occurred at one point or another in all three nations — reveals that regardless of what moral education code is being taught, there will be students who resort to violence as a means to an end. Given that researchers have yet to confirm the precise cause of youth violence in each country, it is likely in Japan's and China's best interest to follow the lead of the United States and battle the problem on multiple levels: legal (increased penalties), social (exclusion from regular schooling), psychological (training youth in negotiation and conflict resolution), punitive and policy-based (absolutely no tolerance for weapons of any kind on school campuses), familial (developing healthy parent-child relationships and encouraging youth to seek counseling when needed), and programmatic (promoting respect and fostering self-esteem).
Time magazine recently argued that the violent youth of Japan copied Americans, and those of China copied the Japanese. Such an argument fails to take into account the full complexity of issues that may cause a young person to reach the point of committing violence against another. Indeed, as the United States has come to recognize over the last decade, there is hope for a less violent future in both Japan and China. International observers and scholars have increasingly noted that youth violence is a global challenge requiring cross-cultural solutions. Through all of these stories, we must also learn to listen to our youth — regardless of which country they live in — and provide them with safe outlets for the frustration and rage that sometimes manifests itself in unpredictable and unnecessary violence.
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