Inclusion and Segregation: A Study on Special ‎Education Development in China ‎

Abstract

Purpose: Special education provision in China manifests conflicts and challenges with ‎respect to inclusion and segregation and being capable to address the rights of learners ‎with special educational needs (SENs) to live equally, to learn and to belong. Previous ‎research showed the existence of a parallel special education system, that is Learning in ‎Regular Classrooms (LRC) and inclusion. Others argued that the claimed LRC is not ‎consistent with standards of inclusive education worldwide. While some researchers have ‎looked at the existence of multiple forms of provision, positively—matching the different ‎needs of all learners with SENs and adding uniqueness to the Chinese context; others ‎have argued that it hinders building a national standardised system to ensure the quality ‎of provision. Building upon this existing argument, the present study asks: (1) How are ‎inclusion and segregation addressed before and after the National Plan 2010-2020? (2) ‎How has the government provided special education and inclusive education at various ‎educational levels? (3) How do stakeholders in China understand inclusion and ‎segregation? ‎

Methods: Consistent with the pragmatic paradigm, the sequential, explanatory mixed ‎method ‎design, and the Person-Process-Context-Time (PPCT) model of the bioecological ‎system theory, two phases of data collection were performed. The quantitative ‎phase was ‎conducted first and included two sub-phases with the purpose of increasing the ‎data ‎reliability and validity. The first sub-phase used the Ministry of Education Database ‎and ‎included data for eight years for the total number of ‎special education schools, ‎classes, ‎entrants, graduates and enrolled students, enrolled male and female students, ‎schools ‎in urban ‎and rural areas, the number of enrolled primary ‎school students of grade ‎one vs. the number of enrolled senior secondary school of ‎grade three, between 2010 and ‎‎2017. The second sub-phase included data for ‎eight years before and after the National ‎Plan (2003-2010, 2011-2018) for the total number ‎of ‎special education schools, total ‎enrolment, new enrolment, graduates, ‎educational ‎personnel and full–‎‎time teachers, based ‎on the National Bureau Of Statistics of China (NBSC) database. These data ‎were ‎validated and corroborated by the qualitative phase which also contained two sub-‎phases. ‎The first sub-phase included policy documents, namely: (a) ‎the National Plan ‎‎2010-2020, (b) ‎Compulsory Education Law of the People’s Republic of China, (c) Law ‎on the Protection of ‎Persons with Disabilities, and (d) reports and documents from the ‎China Disabled Persons’ ‎Federation ‎‎(CDPF)‎‏. ‏‎ The second sub-phase included primary ‎data of nine in-depth interviews ‎with special and inclusive education stakeholders, ‎specifically, three administrators, three ‎practitioners and three academics. These collected ‎data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics, and content analysis. ‎

Results: There were remarkable differences between the views of the stakeholders and ‎findings on the quantitative phases, albeit, most of the participants seemed to be ‎subjective towards the interpretation and understanding of policy documents in regards ‎to inclusion and segregation. For instance, the participants rejected most of the findings ‎on the quantitative phase including: (a) recording more enrolled males than females in ‎special and inclusive education, (b) a significant gap between rural vs. urban areas in ‎inclusion and segregation, and (c) less enrolled students in senior secondary schools, ‎vocational and university. Although the policy documents reported the need to level up ‎these shortcomings; the participants seemed to be subjective and attributed the existence ‎of these gaps to other factors like population growth, census population, disability census ‎to males, and the large size of the country. However, some views of the participants ‎showed high level of reasonability like the need to implement and apply multiple forms of ‎provision to achieve equality, learning and sense of belongingness to all learners with ‎SENs. These multiple forms ensure all the needs of the learners including (a) learners who ‎have minor disabilities and can fully join regular education schools (i.e. full inclusion), (b) ‎learners who need to be prepared through resource classes before joining regular ‎education schools (i.e. mainstreaming), (c) learners who for disability related reasons are ‎placed in segregated schools (i.e. segregation), and (d) learners who are neither able to ‎join regular education schools, special classes in regular education classes, nor special ‎schools, instead, they are provided with home-education and/or online education which is ‎referred to as exclusion in this study. This term is used in different research to refer to ‎learners with SENs being left out of both regular and special education. In this study, ‎considering the Chinese context, it is used to refer to provision of home education and/or ‎online education to ensure equal rights of education for all. These four forms of provision ‎are parallel. In other words, they all work as pillars of inclusion, the major trend of ‎education for learners with SENs, recently. All in all, these results are evident of the ‎variability in understanding the conflict of inclusion and segregation in providing special ‎and inclusive education in China. ‎

Conclusions: Consistent with the PPCT model, the current conflict of inclusion and ‎segregation might be developed using four dimensions starting with considering the ‎personal characteristics of (a) person (i.e. biological: equality, cognitive: learning and ‎emotional: sense of belongingness), by implementing the (b) process (Prevention-‎Intervention-Compensation PIC model), in a (c) context (marked as a quadripartite ‎system: Inclusion-Mainstreaming-Segregation-Exclusion (IMSE) model, with taking into ‎consideration (d) time, accurate implementation of policies and life transitions. Although ‎the present study encountered a few ontological, ‎epistemological, methodological and ‎procedural shortcomings; it has theoretical and ‎methodological contributions to the study ‎of the development of special education, specifically, provision (i.e. inclusion and ‎segregation). ‎Decision-makers and policy-makers should ‎reconsider the current status of ‎special education ‎from a bioecological perspective. Researchers on special education ‎should attempt large-scale ‎research that is not biased ‎to any research method to reach ‎more plausible findings. Above all, cultural capital (i.e. ‎beliefs towards special education ‎community), social capital (i.e. shared ‎sense about ‎special education community), human ‎capital (i.e. equal employment rights ‎and ‎protected working environment) , economic ‎capital (i.e. equal sharing of economy ‎regardless ‎of competitiveness), and financial capital ‎‎(i.e. funds and support share for ‎special education ‎community) should work ‎collaboratively to achieve equality, ‎provide learning, and ensure ‎sense of belongingness to ‎learners with SENs.‎