Capítulo XIII. Resilient schools in disaster-prone Japan: a socio-educational approach

• Author: Carmen Grau Vila
• Profession: Institute for Sustainable Community and Risk Management of Waseda University-Tokyo, Japan
• Pages: 195-212

CAPÍTULO XIII

RESILIENT SCHOOLS IN DISASTER-PRONE JAPAN: A

SOCIO-EDUCATIONAL APPROACH

Carmen Grau Vila

Institute for Sustainable Community and Risk Management of

Waseda University-Tokyo, Japan

Figure 1. Main entrance of Kirikiri Primary School and designated Evacuation Shelter,

located in Iwate prefecture (north of Japan), a region severely damaged by the 2011

earthquake and tsunami.

1. INTRODUCTION

Japan is a country of thousand islands located in the Paci c Ring of Fire, an

area of the planet that concentrates great seismic and volcanic activity. Located on

four tectonic plates, the country has experienced numerous disasters throughout

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history with thousands lives lost: earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanic eruptions,  res,

typhoons or heavy rains.  e last major disaster that occurred on March 11, 2011 -a

strong earthquake with epicenter in the Paci c Ocean that triggered a large tsunami

and in turn caused a nuclear accident- devastated the coast of the Tohoku region

in the northeast of the country and le more than 15,000 victims. However, the

human losses could have been more. In the middle of the emergency, the schools

and communities acted to protect and save lives.

How was the great earthquake and tsunami managed from schools and what

lessons can be drawn? We examine the Japanese case through a socio-educational

approach. In the  rst place, we analyze the risk prevention and disaster management

mechanisms existing in the Asian archipelago in the educational  eld. Secondly,

we look at a case study in Tohoku schools a ected by the 2011 tsunami.  rough

ethnographic fieldwork and on-site interviews with survivors, we observe

communities, teachers and children’s actions right after the emergency and

post-disaster.

 e analysis allows us to evaluate the resilient capacity of Japanese communities

through their schools’ centers and how prevention training from childhood, a rapid

evacuation, survival in shelters and the transmission of disaster experience to new

generations are the key for disaster management in the archipelago. Moreover, the

Japanese case o ers examples and mechanisms applicable to prevention training

for children and families in various contexts and types of disasters, regardless of the

place, country and culture. In the face of future disasters in other geographical areas

of the world, lessons learned by Japanese society can be replicable.

2. THE CONCEPT OF RESILIENCE IN JAPAN AND GLOBAL INFLUENCE

Resilience covers a wide spectrum of meanings and is used in multiple

disciplines.  e English word resilience derives from the Latin resiliens and refers to

the ability to adapt to an adverse situation or the ability to recover the initial state

a er a disturbance.  e use of this concept related to disasters is relatively recent.

Canadian researcher Crawford S. Holling first introduced the concept of

resilience in 1973, applying it to ecology and systems evolution to de ne t he ability of

an ecosystem to overcome itself. Currently, t he term also encompasses the intrinsic

capacity of the human being to survive and overcome threats. In this line, Ungar

(2013) a rms that resilience are two essential functions: the  rst would be the ability

of individuals to navigate through the physical, cultural, social and psychological

resources that build and sustain their well-being; and the second function is the

individual and collective capacity to negotiate that these resources are provided in

a culturally signi cant way.