Policy intents and the enactment of inclusion in prestigious schools in urban China: can equity and excellence coexist?

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article addresses the policy intents regarding inclusive education in the Chinese basic education sector, prestigious school principals’ and teachers’ understanding of inclusion, and their current enactment of inclusion in delivering education. Through document analysis and semi-structured interviews, we find that inclusion in China can be understood in two broad categories. One concerns even development and equal access to educational opportunities between regions of different economic development, while the other concerns equal rights and educational opportunities between students with special educational needs and students in regular classrooms. In terms of enactment, the teachers and principals at the prestigious schools sampled focus on different issues to those highlighted in policy documents. Inclusion is often discussed in relation to competition, quality, and outcomes in the schools, rather than access to education and the learning process. When it comes to inclusion criteria, prestigious schools substantively exert their influence to exclude certain students, due to their self-image of excellence. However, based on the ideology of human capital theory, excellence and equity are not seen as incompatible goals in the Chinese educational system.KEYWORDS: Inclusionassessmentequityexcellenceurban China Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.Notes1 Quanna means ‘all included’ in Chinese.2 Ronghe means ‘to integrate, to merge, to mix’ in Chinese.3 It should be mentioned that the term abnormal is generally considered insulting, hurtful, or offensive. However, the interview transcript presents an accurate rendition of what was said.Additional informationFundingThis work was supported by the research project Education Access under the Reign of Testing and Inclusion (PI Christian Ydesen) funded by a Sapere Aude grant from the Independent Research Fund Denmark (Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond) under Grant no. 8047-00063B].Notes on contributorsYoujin RuanDr. Youjin Ruan is currently a teaching assistant at the Department of Culture and Learning, Aalborg University. Her main research interests are policy and practice around educational assessment and inclusive education, comparative education, learner-centred pedagogical design.Baocun LiuDr. Baocun Liu is a professor of comparative education and the director of the Institute of International and Comparative Education at Beijing Normal University. He also serves as the president of the China Comparative Education Society. He has been involved in a wide range of national and international research and consultancy projects and has published more than 300 journal papers and 20 books.Tengteng ZhuangDr. Tengteng Zhuang is currently an assistant professor affiliated with Institute of Higher Education, Faculty of Education, Beijng Normal University. He works on comparative education, higher education, and education policies. He has published more than 30 SSCI and CSSCI journal articles and two monographs on China’s higher education.