Chinese regular classroom teachers’ understanding of barriers to inclusive education

Abstract

Since 1980s, China has initiated formal education reform, namely ‘Learning in Regular Classrooms’,
towards inclusive education. Reforms in the last three decades have resulted in considerable
changes and progress in many aspects of inclusive education monitor system, regular
school organization, financial funding system and special service provision. However, the current
Chinese inclusive education development is still shaky because of various barriers. Unless these
barriers are identified and successfully addressed, it is unlikely that China can achieve a comprehensive
inclusive education. The purpose of this study is to identify barriers to inclusive education
and suggest measures that could be employed to clear these barriers in Chinese regular school
context, while mainly based on the data collected from 26 regular classroom teachers’ interviews
in Shuangliu District, Sichuan province. Significant barriers were mentioned by regular classroom
teachers contained: lacking of professional knowledge on special and inclusive education,
existing ways of thinking within regular school, inadequate special education service provision
and opposition of regular students’ parents. Possible strategies for overcoming the barriers were
provided by regular classroom teachers as well. The results inform that further develop Chinese
inclusive education should carefully address the barriers that are mentioned by regular classroom
teachers.