ANALYSING LEGISLATION ON INCLUSIVE EDUCATION BEYOND ESSENTIALISM AND CULTURALISM: SPECIFICITIES, OVERLAPS AND GAPS IN FOUR CONFUCIAN HERITAGE REGIONS (CHRS)

ABSTRACT

Breaking with discriminatory views and segregated education for children with disabilities, regions often referred to as Confucian Heritage Regions (CHRs) have been moving towards inclusive education. Although some of these regions have been at the centre of attention in global education recently, there is a lack of research and information about how they ‘do’ inclusive education. Considering that reinforcing legislative foundations is of foremost importance for its fulfillment, this study examines legislation on the education of children with disabilities in four neighbouring CHRs: the Chinese Mainland , Japan, South Korea and China's Taiwan. The core principles that frame such legislation were analyzed and cross-compared. The findings show that despite the common Confucian heritage that is attributed to them systematically in studies of inclusive education – which is often said to influence the way disability is perceived and dealt with – the four Regions treat inclusion differently in terms of legislation. While some CHRs are clearly influenced by e.g. the USA, others are trying to design a specific perspective on inclusive education. The authors argue that the complex example of these CHRs can serve as an important template for studies on both inclusive and comparative education. The article also calls for the careful treatment of inclusive education beyond an essentialist and somewhat simplistic perspective that could reduce certain regions to a monolith.

Keywords:

• inclusion
• special education
• education legislation
• Confucian Heritage Regions
• inclusive education

Disclosure statement

All authors contribute equally. No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 The notion of disability is understood at this stage, to include a wide range of physical characteristics, intellectual attributes, abilities, and severity levels. We will discuss the way it is defined in the four different contexts of this study in the following sections.

2 One should also bear in mind that e.g. Buddhism represents another influence on CHRs. Marxism has also had a strong influence on e.g. Mainland China.

3 https://sites.ed.gov/idea/statuteregulations/

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Beijing Educational Sciences Thirteen-Five Planning Foundation [CAFA16050].