Japan’s school bullying problem

The vast majority of Japan’s elementary and middle-school students “have experienced bullying, both as the victim and the perpetrator,” Agence France Presse reports, based on a survey of 4,800 students aged 10-15 by the country’s National Institute for Educational Policy Research. Among the key findings, 86.9% of elementary students had been “shunned by friends, ignored or talked about behind their backs at least once in the past three years,” and 84% “had bullied their schoolmates at least once”; 80.3% of middle-school students had been “picked on at least once in the same period,” and 81.3% had bullied their peers. The AFP adds that bullying has long been a major educational issue in Japan due to concerns over the high suicide rate among schoolchildren who are picked on.” Not that the US doesn’t have this problem too – here’s a school-bullying case in Los Alamitos, Calif., reported in the OC Register, where a mother received support from the Anti-Defamation League.