Educational Policy and Practice Contexts

Chapter 3 lays the groundwork for understanding how educators incorporate national special education policies into their local, culturally based practices. It examines national disability policies and services in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. Special education policies in all four nations have been influenced by the contemporary, international trend of inclusive education. Yet the ways in which policymakers and educators have responded to such international initiatives, which reinforce the individual rights of children with disabilities, vary cross-culturally. Such variation partly reflects culturally based differences in how the relative risks of disability labels and the benefits of specialized support are weighted, especially for these children whose functioning is at the border of “typical development” and “having disabilities.”

Overview

Chapter 1 introduces a cross-cultural study of the common and culturally nuanced perspectives of experienced educators from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. on how they support the development of elementary school–age children exposed to stigmatization associated with disabilities. The authors present a cultural developmental model of disability and stigmatization focusing on children’s emerging cultural selves. They also describe the theoretical perspective guiding their inquiry, developmental cultural psychology, including the concept of universalism without uniformity. Next, the chapter presents the book’s methodological approach, which is cross-cultural and includes the deliberate integration of insider and outsider perspectives on cultural contexts and disability. Finally, the authors provide an overview and roadmap to the book.

Lessons Learned and Ways Forward

Chapter 9 summarizes findings from a decade-long program of cross-cultural research on disability, stigmatization, and children’s developing cultural selves in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. It articulates implications for a developmental cultural model of disability, methodological approaches, practice, policy, and future research. It also discusses challenges of cross-cultural research including working within international research teams.

Preventing and Repairing Harm to Children’s Cultural Self

In responding to the impact of stigmatization on children with disabilities, educators from Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. typically considered children’s individual self, for example, their academic progress, as well as socialization practices to help them function better in their classrooms (socially embedded self). Their responses, however, were culturally nuanced. Educators in Japan described supporting children’s sense of belonging to their classroom peer groups, while educators in South Korea described helping children become contributing members of mutually supportive classroom peer groups. Educators in Taiwan helped children to regulate their intense emotions resulting from frustration and failure to meet expectations, and educators in the U.S. worked to support children’s self-esteem. Chapter 7 also presents educators’ similar and culturally nuanced discussions of socialization practices to reduce the effect of peers’ disability and stigmatization on typically developing children’s cultural selves.

Children’s Development as Context

Chapter 4 considers how educators’ perspectives and practices may be affected by the broad developmental changes experienced by the children they educate. Over the past few years, there has been an increasing interest in the importance of understanding the experiences of children with disabilities. This chapter summarizes available literature, conducted almost exclusively in Western cultural contexts, on the experiences of children with disabilities and their typically developing siblings and peers focusing on disability, stigmatization, and the cultural self. Then it considers related socialization practices by adults in East Asian countries and the U.S.

Parent–Educator Relationships

Chapter 8 describes educators’ perceptions of how stigmatization affects their relationships with parents whose children have disabilities and how they respond to these challenges in Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and the U.S. Educators from all four cultural groups characterized the development of collaborative relationships with parents as critical to supporting the school success of children with disabilities. They also described challenges posed by stigmatization to those relationships and solutions to those challenges. The perspectives of educators from diverse contexts can help identify cultural blind spots and provide insights into the development of effective culture- and stigma-sensitive strategies to build relationships with parents to better support their children.

The Voices of Children

Interlude 1 highlights the voices of children as they grapple with the issue of disability in middle childhood. As part of her ethnographic work in a Japanese elementary school, Dr. Kayama, who uses a wheelchair, worked as a teaching assistant for children with disabilities. She was invited to discuss disabilities as a guest teacher in grades 1 to 6. Educators viewed Dr. Kayama’s experiences as important opportunities for children to learn about disabilities and social justice from “real life.” This interlude presents children’s responses to Dr. Kayama’s narratives here as a glimpse of a child’s-eye view of disability and stigmatization. It also discusses how Dr. Kayama developed trusting relationships with adults and engaged children in discussions of disability, a highly sensitive topic in Japan.

The Voices of Parents

Interlude 2 briefly illustrates the perspectives of Japanese and South Korean parents who have children with disabilities. It also describes strategies used for approaching parents on this highly sensitive topic. Japanese parents discussed their children’s challenges, the benefits they perceived of disability services, and their preferences for how their children should be supported at school. South Korean parents described their children’s challenges including stigmatization, the impact on typically developing siblings, and the importance of the support they received from other parents raising children with disabilities. Understanding parents’ perspectives on their children’s disabilities and associated stigmatization can facilitate collaborative parent–educator relationships necessary to supporting the school functioning of children with disabilities.

Disability and Stigmatization as Threats to Children’s Cultural Self

Chapter 6 describes educators’ common concern that as children with disabilities and their typically developing peers become increasingly aware of the differences between them and the negative meanings of those differences, their cultural selves are challenged. Children with disabilities may begin to feel less than and separate from their typically developing peers and fail to experience the self as a competent, socially valued, contributing member of the class. Special education services that can improve children’s academic and social functioning also may highlight their differences from peers and further contribute to labelling and stigmatization. Educators also expressed concern that typically developing children’s cultural selves may be challenged to meet expectations that they accept, respect, include, or feel empathy toward peers with disabilities. The chapter also describes educators’ culturally nuanced understanding and concerns.

Cultural Historical Contexts

This chapter introduces some of the cultural-historical background necessary to understanding the perspectives of educators in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea, and the U.S. While recognizing the complex, evolving nature of culture, it provides an overview of some broadly shared, culturally embedded ideas about disability, stigmatization, and the self that are prevalent in East Asia and the U.S. In East Asian contexts, these include culturally specific folk beliefs, Confucianism, Buddhism, internationalism, and Westernization; as well as important historical events shaping modern educational systems put in place after World War II. In the multicultural U.S. context, common ideas and educational practices relevant to disability are shaped by ideas pertaining to individuality, independence, achievement, and internationalism, as well as important historical events such as the civil rights movement.