Cooperative Learning of Seiryu-Tai Hayashi Learners for the Hida Furukawa Festival in Japan

The residents of Furukawa-cho, Hida City, Gifu Prefecture, Japan use cooperative learning during festival organization to preserve the various traditional arts of Hida Furukawa Festival, such as Hayashi. The goals of this study were to (1) analyze the aspects of cooperative learning of Seiryu-tai Hayashi learners involved in the Furukawa Festival, and (2) determine the effects of factors influencing cooperative learning on the aspects of cooperative learning among these learners. We applied grounded theory and conducted a field study on the six years of the Furukawa Festival and residents’ daily lives since 2014. We numbered, coded, and categorized text data, and classified the data using the KJ method. We applied the five elements of cooperative learning by Johnson and Johnson, and analyzed the cooperative learning processing of Seiryu-tai, considering five aspects: (1) cultivation and skills: to follow the norms of Hayashi learning and then cultivate the skills; (2) demonstration and imitation: the process of Hayashi learning without notation; (3) instruction and accompanying: elders addressed norms and demonstrated skills, providing comfort and encouragement; (4) experience and feeling: interacting with unqualified learners to experience the Hayashi atmosphere, and (5) others and interaction: experience of a different culture. From the analyses, we found that the five elements of cooperative learning in Hayashi cooperative learning provide new functions. We applied the five elements of cooperative learning to analyze the five aspects of Azure Dragon Stall’s Hayashi cooperative learning: (1) positive interdependence: deep interdependence exists in the core of the learning circle, and guarding and immersion are included; (2) individual accountability: achievement of following the norms, enhancing skills, and having a tacit agreement on the instrumental ensemble; (3) promotive interaction: five interactive types are influenced, including people who follow etiquette, people who need to be advised, people who imitate, people with tolerance, and people who interact; (4) the division of social skills into four types including playing, performing, senior, and foreign, and (5) group processing, which includes learners, instructors, senior learners, elders, youths, and foreign visitors, who jointly form the Hayashi learning circle.