Transcript: The Iko-Project

Opening Jingle

This is the Nordic Asia podcast.

Tyra Orton [00:00:02]

Welcome to the Nordic Asia Podcast, a collaboration sharing expertise on Asia across the Nordic region. I'm Tyra Orton, student assistant at the Nordic Institute of Asian Studies and a student of Japan studies at the University of Copenhagen. It's my pleasure to be talking today with Marie Roesgaard about an ongoing project that she is a participant of titled Program Development for International Understanding Education for the Understanding and Coexistence of ‘Iko’, which we might refer to as the ‘Iko-project’ from now on. Marie is an associate professor of Japan studies at the University of Copenhagen, and her research focuses on the Japanese education system, especially topics relating to the reform, globalization, global citizenship, sustainable development goals and moral education. Marie, welcome to the Nordic Asia podcast.

Marie Roesgaard

Thank you.

Tyra Orton

So first of all, perhaps you can give us a bit of background about this project. What are the key issues that the project wants to address and what was the project born out of?

Marie Roesgaard

Well the project - I'm actually piggybacking on an existing Japanese project. We started some years ago discussing how to how to best train children in understanding difference and coping with difference. And that's not just cultural differences, but also maybe differences within the class. And is this a conglomerate of researchers from various universities in Japan and I am joined over the last three years. And the idea is to have a scenario that you present to children in class that makes them think about why is it we react differently and what does it mean that we are different? So they start by trying to map the differences within the class, the different approaches to what is okay and what is not okay for the individual. And then later we lift it up on a more global scale so to say. This this project started originally as a triangulation between Japan, Korea and China. So during Corona, China became quite impossible for the Japanese to to get into. And so they invited me to become a proper member of the group. Until then, I had just used this more or less for teaching my own MA students, actually. But now I am a fully fledged member of it. And so the comparison also now includes Denmark. When we do the project and maybe I should explain just afterwards, what was the scenario all about? But then we show the children answers from the other countries, but without telling which countries they are. And this means that they will identify with the country that seems to answer most like what they did. And then afterwards, when they realized what country it is, this is a further opportunity to discuss; is that surprising or is it what we had expected? What are our images of these different countries? So, of course, now we have we have generated some results for Denmark, and it will be interesting to see how they correspond or how they are responded to, which I hope I will see in April. The aim of the project to be a little difficult to explain. It feels like – to me it feels like we are exploring and we don't know what will be behind the next corner. So we make it up as we go. And the project itself does not have this very well-defined goal except I think for for creating teaching material, which they already have, but they keep generating funds for this sort of collage of things where I think a lot of side projects will spring out of this. But at the moment, if I'm asked what is the purpose, I will say well, we want to enhance mutual understanding and tolerance. And that is the goal of very many projects - I realize that. This is our approach. But I think it's interesting to to have this this sort of feeling your way rather than having a goal in neon on your forehead and you just pursue that because I think it gives us a chance to maybe see things that we wouldn't have seen if we were very focused on one specific outcome that we wanted. The scenario that's presented to the children, it's usually six or seven grade children. So it needs to be something close to home, but not, how shall I put it, not… Something you like, but something that's not valuable in and of itself, because it means to see your affective answer. So the topic of chocolates was chosen and it's a scenario saying, Well, you are on camp with your friends and you brought the sweets and when you’re about to eat them you have to go to the door, and then when you come back, all your chocolates are gone. And your friend promptly admits that he ate them because he loves chocolate so much and that usually is seen as quite infuriating, at least that it's the only reason. But anyway, that is what he says. And then you can choose between four different answers: That this is okay because we're friends, or since we're friends, it will not ruin our friendship, but I wish you wouldn't do it. And then: this feels uncomfortable. And the last is: I don't understand this person at all, how could he do this? And we cannot be friends anymore. And then they choose these answers. And they discuss them in groups. So they will realize, you know, even within this small group, there may be different approaches and different opinions about whether it's okay for this guy to take my sweets and how should I react. And then class wise, and then they get the pie diagrams from other countries. And usually in the Danish context, the children are very surprised that their answers look more like China than Japan because the images of China and Japan are so different in the Danish public.

Tyra Orton

Okay, and I think we should definitely go into a little bit more detail about this and about the results. But before we do that, I was thinking our listeners might be wondering a little bit about the word Iko - what it means. So how would you define Iko and what significance does it have for the project?

Marie Roesgaard [00:06:32]

Yeah, Iko, actually I think it's pretty basic to the idea. Most Japanese would not recognize the combination of the two characters because this is a character for ‘other’ and the character for ‘Self’ put together. And it's put together by a very brilliant Chinese scholar who knows exactly what she's doing. So it's not that that you just did something stupid. I mean, that's a long, I’ve read a very long explanation of the philosophical background for creating this word. But it means yourself and the other in one brilliant little compound just called Iko. So. So it is about reflection on my values and reflection on the other person's values.

Tyra Orton

I see. Very interesting. So with that in mind, now, you can maybe explain to us what kind of observations did you make when the Iko experiment or the scenario was carried out in Denmark?

Marie Roesgaard [00:06:32]

Oh, that Danish children are actually quite tolerant to each other. They would usually accept it - they would be annoyed. Very many of them said that it was annoying “irriterende”, but it would not affect their friendship. They would prefer that next time the person asks before eating your sweets. So I think on the whole they were quite tolerant and understanding and we discussed actually, would it be no, if it was somebody taking your mobile phone or something – would that make a difference? We don't have such data. And but but I'm not so sure because, I mean, we could we can't make a scenario where it's stealing, for example. So it needs to be something you could actually share if you wanted. But yes, I think that the Danish students are actually quite sociable and want to keep their friendships as best they can. One of the things that we found, and maybe the aspect I find most interesting is the huge surprise it is to the Danish children when they realized that their choices and their arguments are pretty much the same as those of Chinese children because and I think that's the reasons why we have talked about some of the classes. The image of China is not very good here in Denmark I have to say. Anyone who follows press coverage of it in Denmark would probably also not be surprised that that is the case, because we we primarily hear about problems in China and we hear about conflicts with leadership and hear about corona problems and so on. So it's it's not there's not a lot of positive energy about China, whereas Japan is very often described in terms of culture and in terms of food, in terms of manga, all that sort of thing that particularly children of that age will find really enticing and interesting. So and so for me, it's this surprise of realizing we are actually more like these people that we think we don't really like, than the ones we like. And what that does to the discussion because it suddenly I think it's a very good mirror and that's where the teaching materials will work very well because it forces you to think that, okay, these people are also people. They have other values that we don't know about. So I'm hoping that the experiments such as this will also in time make more and young people more interested in learning about what China really is or what any country really is, because because they have been shown that their preconceptions might be quite biased.

Tyra Orton

Yeah, I see. So you can say that there are kind of two paths of this project that are really interesting. There's the path with the scenario that makes the children think about themselves and their own opinions. And then there's the part where they realise their own kind of preconceptions or like prejudice that they might have. So together, how you've mentioned it already a little bit, but if I can press you a little bit more on how we can use the results to foster intercultural understanding and in the end, ultimately coexistence between cultures.

Marie Roesgaard [00:10:56]

Yeah, I think I think the results will be used differently in Denmark and Japan, for example, which is the country I know most about. Because one interesting thing we noticed is that when the teacher has done the scenario and and wraps up, then the Japanese are still most satisfied because they say, how can you leave them in disagreement because this will hurt the group. And I think this is something we can use very much because because we I can tell, you know, in Denmark, it's quite normal to disagree. It's even desirable that people can have different opinions, whereas the Japanese would say, But how will the group function if if they if they disagree about whether or not it's okay to take somebody else's chocolate? So I think it become a tool for us to become more sensitive to how the same the same action means something very different. So it's for me, it's it's more like I think we can use it to assist our process of challenging ourselves. And I mean, in this case, it's mostly me as a researcher that gets challenged. But of course I try to feedback also, and I intend to make the material available also in the Danish context so that Danish schools, even without me watching over them, can try to use this material to to enhance the sensitivity towards other ways of looking at the world and hopefully through that also so the tolerance towards other ways of imagining things. I mean you could you could imagine the class where ethnically they would be much more mixed than  in most Danish schools, where it could actually also be help to to discuss these things and say, okay, why is it that what I find so offensive, you think is quite okay? And you can discuss it in a in a sort of neutral zone where it doesn't. I mean, many of the Danish students say, well, after all, it's just chocolate, I can get some new. So. So it's not such a dangerous zone to start to talk about why does this feel weird or why does it make me unhappy? Or why am I not bothered by this? So so I think really, for me, at least at this point, the purpose of this is really to provide a tool for developing yourself and for thinking about what it is we do when we do our culture.

Tyra Orton

I see. I think that's something that we can all learn a lot from. So how did the teachers who were conducting the class, how did they react to this kind of project you gave them?

Marie Roesgaard [00:10:56]

Well, they were I mean, I was surprised to find they were very positive actually. The last round of experiments we did, it was with teachers. I had offered them a pre-meeting. They said, well, that's not necessary. And they did fine. So so apparently the material was easy to go to, but they were also interested in it because it's another way of trying to deal with the issues that if we tell the children in advance and you know that we're going to compare your answers etc., then they would try to be strategic, probably about answering. And the teachers were very good at saying this is just, you know, we just want your honest opinion. And they liked the way of doing it. And they also liked the results because they were surprised, too, that this was indeed the case with Chinese children were more like ours. But they also saw it as a good opportunity to discuss these differences in a different scenario than we usually do, because very often we talk about why can’t the Muslims eat pork or why are they wearing the scarves and, you know, all that sort of thing. That's either very, very basic and will not lead us anywhere or something that that has the potential of exploding in our places because it's it's politically very sensitive. So I think this opportunity of talking about something without having to resort to in a Danish school perhaps usual suspects was was very interesting for them. So so and I had a follow up meeting with them and they said we would definitely be like to use this in the future, too, because it's it's a good way of initiating some discussion and some thinking in the class.

Tyra Orton

And I started out by saying that it's an ongoing project and you say that the teachers are interested in doing it again in the future. So what are your plans as the participants for the project going from here?

Marie Roesgaard [00:10:56]

Well, my plan is to write up the material so it can be approached by other people and put it on the platform here at the University of Copenhagen, where schools in Denmark can approach it and use it. But of course, I would certainly like to to do the project in other regions. At this point we've done it only in the greater Copenhagen, so central Copenhagen and Northern Zealand. I think maybe some of the answers could be different if we get to other places. I would also like maybe to see more ethnically mixed classes how they would use this material. But I think that more and more my focus will be to see how do they integrate this material and what do they expect to be the results. Because I mean, we can never - humans are like this, we cannot anticipate what will happen. We can tell people stuff, we can teach them stuff, but we don't know how they will actually use it or act upon it. So it's, of course, an investment. So over the years, maybe we can see results. Maybe it can become part of the Danish curriculum of teaching about democracy and tolerance and how you have to respect people even if you disagree with them.

Tyra Orton [00:17:05]

I think that's very exciting and I'm very excited to hear about all these future plans for the project as well. Marie Roesgaard thank you for giving us an insight into the Iko-project and sharing with us your thoughts on something as important as cultural understanding and coexistence across cultures. We wish you and all your colleagues best of luck with the project in 2023 and the years to come.

Marie Roesgaard

Thank you very much.

Tyra Orton

My name is Tyra Orton, and I'd like to thank you for joining the Nordic Asia podcast showcasing Nordic collaboration in studying Asia.

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