A critical analysis of court decision on mainstream school attendance of a child with medical care needs in Japan: a long way towards inclusive education

ABSTRACT

This paper begins by providing a history of Japanese law pertaining to special education and its change towards a more inclusive education with the ratification of United Nations Conventions of the Rights of People with Disabilities. With the changes in laws, more children with constant medical care needs in Japan have the opportunity to attend mainstream schools. The recent court case, Kosuge v. Kanagawa prefecture and Kawasaki city, ruled against a child with medical care needs to attend mainstream school and made the judgment that a special needs school (tokubetsushien gakkō) is the appropriate placement for the child based on the child’s disability type and degree of disability rather than needs and regardless of the wishes of the child’s parents. This paper explores the case judgement and discusses where Japanese special education laws fall short similar to that of the US system based on Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. We suggest the need to keep inclusion as the basic human rights aligned with the Article 24 of the UNCRPD rather than focusing on the continuum of education principle in IDEA, and operationalise the law into practice to make integration of children with disabilities, including children with constant medical care needs, into mainstream education schools.

KEYWORDS:

• Inclusive education
• medical care
• reasonable accommodation
• court decision
• school placement

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Fiscal year in Japan begins on April 1 and ends on 31 March. Japanese school year begins in April and ends in March.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by JSPS KAKENHI [Grant Number 19K02913].

Notes on contributors

Munehisa Yoshitoshi

Munehisa Yoshitoshi, Ph.D., is a professor at the special education in the Faculty of Education at the Okayama University, Japan. His research specifically focusses on school administration for inclusive education.

Kiriko Takahashi

Kiriko Takahashi, Ph.D., is an Associate Specialist at the Center on Disability Studies at University of Hawaiʻi and a Project Associate Professor at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo. Her research interests include assistive technology, inclusive education, learning disabilities, STEM, and culturally responsive teaching.