Using an autoethnographic approach, this paper focuses upon interactions between 'Paul' (a pseudonym), whose symptoms associated with 'severe learning difficulties' are such that he is positioned on the low-functioning end of the autistic spectrum, his carers and others, in spaces taken for granted to be 'public' in both the United Kingdom and Hong Kong. This paper examines how social discourses relating to disability filter into social interactions, ultimately constructing the symptoms they purport to represent. This paper concludes by highlighting how interactions might be viewed as enabling rather than disabling, as producing spaces for thinking about the human condition.
[Copyright of Disability & Society is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599.2014.953245]

This article examines the problems associated with introducing integrated education into Hong Kong's mainstream schooling system. The research objectives were to examine the experience of teachers in teaching children with special needs in mainstream schools; to examine the attitude of mainstream teachers towards integrated education, and explore whether the differences in perception of difficulties and attitudes are attributable to types of disability and availability of resources. This was achieved through a research strategy utilising a questionnaire survey combined with individual and group interviews. The results demonstrate that there is a clear hierarchy of preference amongst teachers in relation to special needs children. Students with a learning disability and/or behavioural problems pose more challenges to teachers than those with a physical difficulty. Teachers that had both types of special needs children in a class experience more problems in maintaining classroom discipline, have a greater workload and struggle to manage the disparate academic standards amongst students. Teachers in schools with extra funding provisions, teachers trained to teach special needs children, additional counselling resources and specialist support expressed more accepting attitudes towards children with special needs and their admission into mainstream schools. Resource classes did not exert a positive effect on acceptance. More than 70% of questionnaire respondents were supportive of two positive value statements 'realisation of equal opportunities' and 'a good chance for students to interact'. At the same time teachers tended to agree with the statements 'integration was a burden to the schools and teachers' (over 60%) and 'a painful struggle for special students' (48%). Although there is a general normative acceptance of inclusion, the statistical pattern suggests that teachers' attitudes are not static or based solely on ideology.
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Inclusion of students with disabilities into regular schools is now one of the most significant issues facing the education community both nationally and internationally. In order to address this issue there is widespread acceptance that teacher training institutions must ensure that new teachers are trained to teach effectively in classrooms where there are students with a variety of learning needs. Utilizing a data set of 603 pre-service teachers from Australia, Canada, Hong Kong and Singapore this study reports the effects of training in inclusive education on pre-service teacher attitudes towards inclusion, their sentiments about people with a disability and their concerns about inclusion. The results are discussed in relation to a range of factors that could have produced different gains in their attitudes, sentiments and concerns among cohorts from different countries.
[Copyright of Disability & Society is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687590802469271]

The debates I explore in this article were prompted by conversations I had with a Government Education Inspector who accompanied me on a visit to a primary school and participated in a series of workshops I organised while I was on a fellowship at Hong Kong University. May Lee's challenge to me that a non-selective education system was a luxury only the First World could afford provoked me into acknowledging a whole new dimension for our discussions of the function of segregated education for groups excluded from the mainstream. I begin by introducing the education system in Hong Kong as it was in the early 1990s. Then I go on, and discuss the activities and conversations I shared with May Lee. Patterns of inclusion and exclusion in Hong Kong reflect a deeply-respected concept of a `good school'; special schools and classes are the only settings for the provision of additional learning support. I discuss examples of each. Finally, I discuss inclusion in education in the context of a developing country, drawing on the work of Chinese, Indian and Western writers to assess May Lee's claim. Opinion is divided. I conclude that the force of an international rhetoric of inclusion obscures the continuing operation of a cultural commitment to selection.
[Copyright of Disability & Society is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599826948 ]

This article examines the issue of children with a disability who are 'informally integrated' into mainstream school. Its main purpose is to reflect the views and experiences of parents, and to identify the major difficulties that arise and their suggestions for ameliorating the situation. The data is based on a series of interviews and focus groups of parents. In order to provide a balanced perspective, responses of schools to a questionnaire were also included. Teachers were asked to express their views about integrated education. These responses were then categorised. It was found that lack of resources and training predominated.
[Copyright of Disability & Society is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09687599925885]