ABSTRACT
In the second chapter, four interviews are related, leading me to consider the previous chapter's data from a different perspective. To grasp all the elements necessary to understand the management of school nonattendance, three psychologists and a psychiatrist were questioned: Ms. Otsuka, a school counselor; Mr. Sakurai, the manager of guidance center X; Dr. Matsuda, a child and adolescent psychiatrist of guidance center J; and Prof. Kubo, associate professor in a university of H. prefecture. These interviews contribute to describing the support provided to children with difficulties in H. city. In addition, they allow us to better grasp the contemporary emergence of professions such as clinical psychologists and child and adolescent psychiatrists. As surprising as it may seem, these professions only emerged at the beginning of the 21st century. Simultaneously, one observes the dramatic increase in developmental disorders (hattatsu shōgai), autism (jiheishō), and school nonattendance. Another unexpected result is discovered: there is not pressure and surveillance for all, but rather surveillance for most of the high school students, and abandonment of the dropouts. Indeed, stereotypes of Japanese students crushed under the weight of entrance exams (junior high and high school, college), or exhausted by an inhumane amount of school pressure, are persistent. Yet, they must be nuanced, and sometimes refuted. As we will see, junior-high school students are effectively the object of intense surveillance, while struggling high school students are often abandoned by others.
