Japan's education system, like its economy, was long seen in Japan and elsewhere as the model of efficiency, discipline and high standards. In recent years, however, the model has collapsed. Classroom pressures mount, and incidents of bullying, suicide, dropout, and violence of one kind or another proliferate. The growing sense of educational crisis came to a head with the 1997 incident in which a child was murdered and decapitated, apparently by a fourteen year old student. When the child killer of Kobe claimed that he had been avenging himself against school which 'threatened his existence', many students were reported to have expressed understanding and support for his views. For large numbers of school students in Japan, school has become a battle field. What is going on in the Japanese education system, and among its students? What does the crisis in the education system signify for the country's troubled economic and political systems? This book describes the Japanese high school as experienced by the students themselves: a perspective which has been largely ignored until now. Using comparative data from Japan and Australia, Shoko Yoneyama focuses on four main aspects of school life: student-teacher relationships, discipline and punishment, school rules and study. She discusses the relationship between these and the phenomena of ijime (group bullying) and tokokyohi (school phobia/ refusal). The Japanese High School is an incisive and disturbing study which will be of great interest to those working in the fields of comparative education, Asian studies and Sociology.