“Castles in the Air”: Kindergarten Directors’ Perspectives on Inclusion in China

Abstract

Although the Chinese government has set forth policies to support the inclusion of childrenwith disabilities in regular educational settings, inclusion is still far from a reality for manychildren. Even in inclusive settings, there is still a dearth of knowledge about how inclusionis being implemented. The purpose of this paper is to present findings from a follow-upstudy with directors of inclusive kindergarten programs in Beijing, China. The goal is tounderstand how children with disabilities are included in regular kindergartens through thelens of 26 associate directors and directors of inclusive kindergartens. The data were collected through open-ended interviews; analysis relied on both deductive and inductive thematic coding. The results suggest while there were more opportunities for children withdisabilities to access inclusive early childhood programs in Beijing, children with disabilitieswere not full participants in activities. Support for programs to provide quality inclusion isalso lacking. The results have implications for practice and policies in order to improve thequality of inclusive early education in China.