| The education of children with disabilities is a central concern in the development of special education in China,and a key issue of concern in the overall context of China’s educational endeavors.Since the 18 th National Congress of the CPC,the State Council and its relevant constituent departments have formulated and issued a number of development plans,guidelines and upgrading programs on the education of children with disabilities.Against this backdrop,education policies for the development of children with disabilities have been introduced across the country,transforming macrolevel general requirements and policy frameworks into concrete and operational institutional arrangements,and achieving remarkable and historic results in terms of placement forms,subsidy standards,and organization and implementation.However,due to the stage of development and a variety of factors,the problem of unbalanced and insufficient development is still relatively prominent.Based on the author’s long-term tracking and participatory observation of the education process for children with disabilities,the problem of “imbalance and insufficiency” can be further focused on the compulsory education stage,i.e.,the education policy for children with disabilities,which is aimed at the pursuit of integration and development,equal sharing,and responsiveness to the demands of children with disabilities,has shown a different exclusion phenomenon in each of the three forms of placement in compulsory education.To a certain extent,it has deviated from the established policy goals,resulting in the failure to guarantee the quality of education for children with disabilities and the difficulty of making progress in social participation.This phenomenon is referred to in this study as “multiple exclusion”,and it is manifested in the following ways: first,the gradient of placement designed for children with different levels and types of disabilities does not guarantee the quality of education for the group of children with moderate to severe disabilities.In other words,children with multiple disabilities,who should receive more attention,are excluded from the policy system.Second,the diversionary placement system,which provides generous subsidies and seeks to share educational resources with all groups of children with disabilities,does not take care of students with disabilities from economically disadvantaged,emotionally deprived,or poorly maintained families,but rather excludes and marginalizes them in the process of implementing the policy.Thirdly,policy arrangements designed to address the specific needs of children with different disabilities have not helped to remove barriers and respond effectively to the demands of their parents,but rather to label these “abnormal”needs and exclude them from the mainstream.Through combing through the literature on educational exclusion of children with disabilities,it is found that the existing studies mostly focus on the description of the phenomenon of educational exclusion from the individual/medical perspective and the social perspective,and their explanatory mechanisms are abstract and fragmented,and the excavation of the phenomenon of educational exclusion is not comprehensive,and fails to reveal the deeper motives and mechanisms behind the phenomenon of educational exclusion of children with disabilities.Therefore,this study focuses on the implementation process of educational policies for children with disabilities from the perspective of interaction,constructs a theoretical analytical framework of “macromeso-micro” based on the basic principles of structure-mechanism analysis,explores the occurrence mechanism of educational exclusion in the context of social structure,and combines the analysis of the policy text and long-term tracking research in an attempt to reveal the deep-rooted causes and mechanisms of the educational exclusion of children with disabilities.Combined with the analysis of policy texts and long-term tracking research,the study tries to reveal the deep-seated motives of educational exclusion of children with disabilities,with a view to providing policy recommendations of greater reference value and practical significance,and contributing to the development of education for children with disabilities in China.Considering the typicality,representativeness and data availability of the case,this study chose the implementation of educational policies for children with disabilities in City A as the case study,and the subjects of the study specifically included the local government department(District A Education Bureau),three special education schools(KC School,CY School,CS School),three general education schools(HQ School,NJ School,DL School)and 25 families of children with disabilities.The author collected data evidence through participant observation,interviews,and review of textual information,triangulated to ensure data quality,and used process analysis when analyzing relevant data.The research findings of this paper are as follows:China’s policy on the education of children with disabilities has been implemented through different policy nodes,across multiple levels of distance,and ultimately to the policy recipients.The implementation process is deeply embedded in the institutional logic of China’s national governance,following the fuzzy governance mechanism of contracting and standardization tournaments under the “principal-agent” relationship,and the objective existence of the policy hierarchical structure and the relationship between the subjects of interest determines the complexity of the policy implementation situation.Therefore,this study constructs a typology framework for the placement of children with disabilities in compulsory education based on the “importance of the task-strength of the assessment constraints",and analyzes the governance resources and their core tasks held by the agent under the three types of placements: learning in regular class,centralized special education,and home-schooling.The typological framework of compulsory education for children with disabilities has been constructed by the“Specialized Education and Home-schooling”,and the typological framework of compulsory education for children with disabilities has been constructed by the“Specialized Education and Home-schooling”.Specifically,in the case of classroom placement,general education schools provide educational services and activities for both regular children and children with disabilities.Although the frequency of inspections and evaluations of classroom placement for children with disabilities has increased in recent years,the task of special education for children with disabilities is not a central or even a priority task for general education schools,and as a result,it has not attracted sufficient attention at the school level,and the human and hardware resources available for it are relatively limited,and the incentives to match them have not yet been developed.Secondly,under the centralized special education placement,special education schools focus on providing educational services for children with disabilities,and are able to match more governance resources with stronger incentives,and have a relatively high willingness to respond to local governments and policy targets.In addition,due to the highly heterogeneous nature of the target group,special education schools face various risks and uncertainties in assessment and inspection.Third,under the form of homeschool placement,according to the principle of proximity placement in the education sector,general education schools and special education schools undertake this task at the same time,but both types of schools lack sufficient incentives to push for a high level of fulfillment of the task,and both place this work in an incidental and marginal position.At the same time,given the type of disability of the target group and the level of supervision by the relevant authorities,the implementation of this task is characterized by both weak constraints and weak incentives.It is under the structural influence of the specific policy implementation context that the subjects of interest,such as school teachers,children with disabilities,children in general,parents of children with disabilities,parents of children in general,etc.,show different behavioral tendencies and strategic choices,which in turn produce unintended consequences in the interaction that deviate from the original intent of the policy,generating multiple exclusions in the field of education for children with disabilities.From the perspective of the form of classroom education,the target group of this placement is children with disabilities who have fewer emotional and behavioral control disorders,have a relatively high level of intelligence,and are able to take care of themselves,including autistic children,children with hearing impairments,and children with speech impairments,among others.As the main body of the policy implementation of this form of placement,the general education school,in the context of the implementation of the “non-central work-focused assessment”,shows a tendency to fulfill the basic tasks and avoid the risk of assessment strategies.On the one hand,school teachers have accomplished the basic tasks of “justifying” and “delivering” through the“one case per lifetime” in the text,the “packaged assessment” with the intention but not the ability to do so,and the steadily increasing enrollment rate.On the other hand,the“understanding” of parents of disabled children,the “consent” of parents of ordinary children who put aside their disputes,and the over-protection of teachers in charge of the classes all contribute to the subtle “satisfaction” of all the main stakeholders in the work of class-attendance.This has effectively avoided the potential risk of accountability from higher levels of assessment.However,the work of the classattendance program,which seeks to achieve integrated development,has not achieved its policy intent;the formal fulfillment of basic tasks does not ensure that children with disabilities are truly integrated into the school,let alone provided with appropriate and adequate educational services;behind the subtle “satisfaction” is the challenge and elimination of economically disadvantaged families or families with poor upbringing,and the screening and disregard of the types of disabilities and special needs of these families.Behind the subtle “satisfaction” is the challenge and elimination of families with economic difficulties or poor upbringing,the screening and disregard of types of disabilities and special needs.From the perspective of centralized special education,the target group of this type of placement is children with disabilities who have more emotional and behavioral control disorders and lower intellectual level but who can take care of themselves,including children with Down’s syndrome,autism,and children with retarded intellectual development,and so on.As the main body of the policy implementation of this form of placement,special education schools,in the context of the implementation of the “central work-focused assessment”,show a tendency to create effective performance and avoid the assessment risk strategy.In order to gain the attention of superiors and a competitive advantage,schools place a high value on competitive competitions and demonstration programs that are likely to be outstanding and distinctive,while the more basic and important routine work displays the practical logic of preventing the worst from happening and putting in the effort to match.At the same time,special education teachers have defused and greatly reduced the cost of their work in the form of bounded high security and sacralized low expectations,compared to the higher intensity and more focused monitoring and inspection of classroom attendance.Unfortunately,however,centralized special education efforts aimed at responding to the educational aspirations of children with disabilities have only met the needs of a small number of them in an extremely limited way,and the basic education service aspirations of many more children with disabilities have been excluded from the mainstream in an insidious way,under the guise of competitions or highlights.In addition,access thresholds based on considerations of preventing the escalation of conflicts between home and school unify complex needs and reinforce the medical classification and labeling of children with disabilities.The target group of this type of placement,in the form of home-schooling,is children with disabilities,including cerebral palsy,multiple disabilities,etc.,who have severe emotional and behavioral control disorders,low intellectual ability,and difficulties in taking care of themselves.The general education schools and special education schools share this task in the context of the implementation of the “noncentralized work-non-focused assessment”,with a strategic tendency to cope with the marginal work and the need for security.For one thing,there are no rules to follow in the arrangement of insignificant tasks,and the content of the policy can be redefined,making it impossible to talk about the relevant supporting measures;for another,there is a lack of constraints on the supervisory mechanism,so that those who implement the policy only need to ensure the personal safety of themselves and their clients,and the sending of education has evolved into the “sending of warmth” with the main body at the door being replaced by a child with a disability.In this process,the work of sending education to the door,which is supposed to be the bottom line,has been reduced to a show that neither pleases the “audience” nor dissipates the energy of the “actors”,and as a result,the more service-demanding children with disabilities find it more difficult to obtain educational services,and children with disabilities facing more barriers are even excluded from the normal special education system.Children with disabilities who face additional barriers are even excluded from the regular special education system.Based on the findings of this paper and the integrated theoretical analysis framework,the author proposes solutions to the problem of educational exclusion of children with disabilities from the macro,meso and micro levels.Specifically,in terms of the macro policy environment,we should overcome the institutional dependence on“developmentalism” and emphasize “people-centeredness” while shaping an inclusive and friendly social environment.In terms of medium-level governance mechanisms,existing constraints and incentives should be optimized,emphasis should be placed on monitoring the policy implementation process,a customer-oriented and publicsatisfaction-oriented performance evaluation mechanism should be formed,and the allocation of resources to the education of disabled children should be strengthened,so that the relevant policies will be tilted to the actual situation.In terms of micro-individual action,by enhancing the awareness of the rights of children with disabilities and their parents,we should help them to actively use relevant policies and regulations to protect their rights,and at the same time,we should strengthen publicity and education to help them to correctly view disabilities and form a scientific concept of education and rehabilitation.In addition,the main body of policy implementation should be guided to shift from a “defective perspective” to an “advantageous perspective” on children with disabilities,and to fully tap the unique strengths and development potential of children with disabilities.At the same time,it is also necessary to improve the system of teacher training,enhance the special education capacity of teachers,and further improve the quality of teaching. |
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