ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how School refusal (SR) was medicalized and subsequently demedicalized and how the processes of medicalization and demedicalization of SR were shaped by Japanese culture and social structure. The SR problem as constructed by the SRA seems to suggest that all SR is caused by teachers and the school system; if there were no bad schools, there could be no SR. The history of SR as a Japanese educational problem demonstrates how a nation’s social structure and culture provide the context for social problems construction. After the School Refusal Associations (SRA) comments about the SR problem appeared in the media, both the SRA itself and Keiko Okuchi became well-known. Studies of school phobia by Japanese psychiatrists stressed the separation anxiety from the mother, immature personality, and matrism—families lacking a father’s authority. Thus, parents of SR students strongly supported demedicalization, even though most medical professionals defined SR as a medical problem.
