Abstract
This is an Area Study on Children with Special Educational Needs in Osaka. in Japan only less than 1% of children are attending special schools or designated special classes. Compared with figures in other countries like 1.8% in the UK, this figure in Japan seems to be relatively low, meaning that inclusive education is already prevailing in Japan today. But in terms of provisions for special educational needs within regular classes such as particular attention to children with SEN or modified curriculum for them, etc., almost nothing has been done and suggested so far, except providing part time guidance in special classes for them since 1992. Bearing these facts in mind, we have done an Area Study on Children with SEN within ordinary classes in Osaka and analyzed the data. We will present the issues that educational diagnosis s needed together with developmental diagnosis and that teachers' job design must be elaborated and renewed for education for all.
I. Children with SEN within ordinary classes Basic facts (dumping)
In Japan less than 1.17% of children are attending special schools or designated special classes (Special schools cover 0.4%, designated special classes 0.56%, part-time inclusion 0.20%).
Compared with figures in other countries like 18% in the UK (including SEN), 10.6% in the USA, 15.5% in Canada, this figure (1.17% of children) of Japan seems to be relatively low. This may show that most children with SEN are included in ordinary schools. Thereibre inclusive education seems to be already prevailing in Japan today. But this is not true.
It is certain that many children with SEN are included into regular classes in Japan. But this fact does not necessarily mean sadsfying inclusive education system exists in Japan today. On the contrary. you have to say that a kind of dumping of children with SEN may be prevailing within normal primary and secondary schools in Japan today, meaning almost nothing has been done and suggested so far, except providing part time guidance in special classes for them since 1992, in terms of care & provisions for special educational needs within regular classes such as particular attention to children with SEN or modified curriculum for them, etc.
Bearing these facts in mind, we have done an Area Study on Children with SEN within ordinary classes in Osaka, but I am so sorry we have not been able to analyze the data yet to the full extent. Nevertheless I would like to show some tendencies arising from our research. Tables 1 to 3 clarify the number of students who think "excellent, favorite, keep up with" on their own subjects among all subjects which students can learn at school. Tables 1 and 2 show excellent and favorite subjects are decreasing due to grades. Table 3 shows that students can follow their lessons at least before graduating primary school, meaning many junior students cannot follow their lessons from junior high stages. At primary level, 32% of students can keep up with all subjects, more than half of the students can keep up with 7 subjects, 70% with 6 subjects.
There is always a certain number of students who can not keep up with even a few subjects from primary level. Though Tables 1 to 3 are not results about Learning Disabilities, or Difficulties(LD),we are sure that Children with SEN like U) must be included among them. When you take the incidence of LD as 2-3% for example, the ratio 1.17% of Japan in need of special care has to be increased along with 20% in UK or 10%-15% in the US.
In Tables 4 to 6 our colleague Ms. Saitoh shows what percent there are of children with educational difficulties within ordinary classes in Osaka. Though these statistics have some defects in terms of method, the number of sample, or questionnaire terminology, I think these results are corresponding to realities about learning difficulties within regular classes to a certain extent.
Table 1: The number of excellent( I feel I am good at) subjects
| Number | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | N |
| 5th grade primary | 3.4% | 5.5% | 10.3% | 15.4% | 20.5% | 22.3% | 13.0% | 6.9% | 2.6% | 493 | |
| 1stgrade junior high | 6.5% | 13.9% | 17.3% | 16.0% | 19.0% | 17.3% | 7.1% | 1.7% | 0.7% | 0.3% | 294 |
| Second | 8.3% | 17.4% | 16.7% | 17.8% | 12.9% | 12.9% | 9.1% | 3.0% | 0.8% | 1.1% | 264 |
| Third | 5.1% | 14.3% | 19.4% | 21.1% | 16.0% | 12.0% | 8.0% | 2.3% | 1.1% | 0.6% | 175 |
Table 2: The number of favorite subjects
| Number | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | N |
| 5th grade primary | 3.5% | 5.7% | 9.3% | 12.6% | 22.4% | 19.1% | 15.9% | 8.7% | 2.8% | 493 | |
| 1stgrade junior high | 4.1% | 10.9% | 12.9% | 16.3% | 17.0% | 14.3% | 10.9% | 7.8% | 4.1% | 1.7% | 294 |
| Second | 7.8% | 11.9% | 14.6% | 13.8% | 16.0% | 12.7% | 10.4% | 8.6% | 3.0% | 1.1% | 264 |
| Third | 4.0% | 14.9% | 16.0% | 12.0% | 14.9% | 14.3% | 12.6% | 5.7% | 4.6% | 1.1% | 175 |
Table 3: The number of kept-up subjects
| Number | 0 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | N |
| 5th grade primary | 4.7% | 2.2% | 2.2% | 2.6% | 6.5% | 11.6% | 15.4% | 22.7% | 32.0% | 493 | |
| 1stgrade junior high | 6.5% | 7.8% | 7.5% | 8.5% | 8.8% | 12.6% | 13.3% | 13.9% | 11.2% | 9.9% | 294 |
| Second | 7.8% | 11.9% | 14.6% | 13.8% | 16.0% | 12.7% | 10.4% | 8.6% | 3.0% | 1.1% | 264 |
| Third | 4.0% | 9.1% | 8.6% | 11.4% | 8.6% | 12.0% | 17.1% | 14.6% | 7.4% | 6.9% | 175 |
Table 4 The number of children with educational difficulties a class (primary)
| N | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Mean |
| Grade 1 & 2 | 6 | 5 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 2.35 |
| 3 & 4 | 6 | 6 | 7 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 2.38 |
| 5 & 6 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 2 | 0 | 2.54 |
| 31.4% | 27.5% | 23.5% | 5.9% | 9.8% | 1.9% |
*the number of students in a class vary form 30 - 40
Table 5 Characteristics of behavior in classes
| Behavior | N | % |
| lack of attention | 60 | 92.3 |
| ?ack of patience | 46 | 70.8 |
| all thumbs | 39 | 60.0 |
| too selfish | 37 | 56.9 |
| so slow to do | 19 | 29.2 |
| speak lazily | 19 | 29.2 |
| think nothing of doing dangerous things | 16 | 24.6 |
| jerky movements | 14 | 21.5 |
| repetition of questions | 10 | 15.4 |
| lack of understanding of right and left | 10 | 15.4 |
| others | 4 | 6.2 |
Table 6 : Learning behaviors in classes
| learning behaviors | N | % |
| hard to master by themselves | 49 | 75.4 |
| hard to write Japanese characters | 49 | 75.4 |
| hard to read aloud | 47 | 72.3 |
| writing is ungrammatical | 39 | 60.0 |
| hard to understand cause and effect relationships | 33 | 50.8 |
| very poor in vocabulary | 30 | 46.2 |
| others | 4 | 6.2 |
Table 7 Disturbance of class by students( 96)
| ?????? | ????????? | ?????? | ????? | |
| ??????? | 2.5% | 14.4 | 34.9 | 48.1 |
| ?????? ???? | 7.1% | 29.3 | 45.3 | 18.3 |
Table 8 Contingency table, an array of teachers' daily relationships with students
| Questionnaire about frequency | Very hard to cope with | Hard | not so hard | Not at all | Chi-square | |
| Bullying | Always | (%) 10.5 | 3.2 | 2.6 | - | |
| Sometimes | 48.3 | 43.2 | 17.1 | 13.9 | ||
| Rarely | 37.1 | 48.2 | 64.5 | 61.1 | ||
| Never | 4.2 | 5.4 | 15.8 | 25 | 66.74 ** | |
| Avoiding school | Always | 48.3 | 21.1 | 11.8 | 5.6 | |
| Sometimes | 44.8 | 68.2 | 68.4 | 63.9 | ||
| Rarely | 6.2 | 10.3 | 18.4 | 25 | ||
| Never | 0.7 | 0.4 | 1.3 | 5.6 | 72.79 ** | |
| Skipping out of class | Always | 35 | 13.7 | 6.8 | - | |
| Sometimes | 46.2 | 56.2 | 37 | 38.9 | ||
| Rarely | 17.5 | 26.5 | 46.6 | 44.4 | ||
| Never | 1.4 | 3.7 | 9.6 | 16.7 | 81.05 ** | |
| Destroying facilities | Always | 9 | 1.8 | 1.3 | - | |
| Sometimes | 31.9 | 29.5 | 13.2 | 16.7 | ||
| Rarely | 44.4 | 48.2 | 52.6 | 41.7 | ||
| Never | 14.6 | 20.5 | 32.9 | 41.7 | 40.67 ** | |
| Violence | Always | 4.9 | 2.7 | 1.3 | - | |
| Sometimes | 39.6 | 29.3 | 18.4 | 11.1 | ||
| Rarely | 43.8 | 52.3 | 38.2 | 38.9 | ||
| Never | 11.8 | 15.8 | 42.1 | 50 | 60.23 ** | |
| Shoplifting | Always | 3.5 | 0.5 | 2.7 | - | |
| Sometimes | 39.9 | 33.9 | 14.7 | 8.3 | ||
| Rarely | 44.1 | 52 | 53.3 | 44.4 | ||
| Never | 12.9 | 13.6 | 29.3 | 47.2 | 52.86 ** | |
| Wandering late night | Always | 20.6 | 8.6 | 2.7 | 3 | |
| Sometimes | 44.7 | 49.5 | 25.3 | 9.1 | ||
| Rarely | 29.1 | 30.9 | 46.7 | 45.5 | ||
| Never | 5.7 | 10.9 | 25.3 | 42.4 | 80.47 ** | |
| Smoking & drinking | Always | 37.5 | 22.1 | 5.3 | - | |
| Sometimes | 47.2 | 57.2 | 49.3 | 30.6 | ||
| Rarely | 13.2 | 17.6 | 37.3 | 52,8 | ||
| Never | 2.1 | 3.2 | 8 | 16.7 | 87.48 ** | |
| Blackmail | Always | 5.7 | - | 1.4 | - | |
| Sometimes | 28.4 | 16.7 | 5.4 | 5.9 | ||
| Rarely | 40.4 | 52.7 | 33.8 | 23.5 | ||
| Never | 25.5 | 30.6 | 59.5 | 70.6 | 73.79 ** | |
| 100 | 0 |
**=p<0.0005
We must always bear in mind : 0 These facts themselves do not have to do with the LD or SEN issues. These educational hardships and LD issues are totally different; © Concerning LD or ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) issues, it goes without saying that developmental diagnosis is very important with medical care if necessary ; 0 Nevertheless it is also very important to note that educational hardships affect the development of the children with SEN to a great extent.
II. Developmental diagnosis & educational diagnosis
When we deal with this issue, educational diagnosis is needed together with developmental diagnosis for identifying children with SEN, because learning difficulties for children with SEN are closely connected with educational hardships. Secondly, teachers' job design must be elaborated and renewed for rebuilding schools with inclusive' systems
A, Identifying educational hardships concerned with co1Japsin~ classrooms
For the last decades, special education for the severely disabled has progressed to a great extent in Japan. But as I said before, a kind of 'dumping' does exist in Japan for children with LD or SEN. It is important to diagnosis and identify children with SEN from a developmental viewpoint using various test packages. But, when we deal with children in schools, educational diagnosis for identifying educational hardships is also needed. Because of the educational hardships together with above-said dumping of children with SEN, Japanese society is now facing 'educational diseases' like school refusal, bullying, school violence, suicide, or even killing etc..
These are concerned with the phenomenon of collapsing classrooms in Japan, e.g., classroom instructions are disturbed by students' ill behavior, teacher - student communications and relationships are being disrupted, and teachers can hardly handle their classrooms (Table 7). Table 8 shows the tendency that an array of teachers' daily relationships with students is statistically correlated with the school hardship levels.
The data on "bullying" and the like in the fields of teachers' daily relationships with students was statistically crossed with the item classified into four levels of dropout ratios in the case of high schools in Osaka. The higher the dropout ratio became, the more all items became severe.
Actually two years after I started observing one classroom (starting from the 5th grade) and getting a videotape recording of it, I myself got flustered in the face of the collapsing of the class. At the end of the 6th grade just before graduation, students began to defy teachers' instructions, or to refuse to listen to the teacher in charge of the lesson, who eventually had to take stress leave for a while. One year later I was faced with another 'collapsed' class of a primary school. Then I was afraid and gradually realized that this phenomenon might be common in Japan to a large extent.
Although we can find no clear solutions at the moment, several factors have been put forward. The Education Ministry sticks to the idea that teachers' capability and responsibility are the most crucial causes for the collapse. But this may be wrong. Though causes vary and depend on cases, we have to be aware that there may be common elements. As Tables 4 to 6 show, there is an issue about educational difficulties and students with SEN within regular classes. Table 4 suggests in almost every classes there are always a few children with educational difficulties. Though Table 6 seems to be a little vague in content, Table 5 together with Table 6 suggests among those classes there is a possibility that developmental problems may be included (lack of understanding of right and left) and hidden as a dumping. This corresponds to the fact of my observation of classes that there are a few 6~ grade children who have only a primary achievement level of ~ 2nd grade (Tables 4 to 6).
As is well known for those concerned, the educational situation with the dumping of children with SNE is aggravated due to the hardship of the highly competitive educational system of Japan today.
The Committee on the Rights of the Child recently advised Japan that "In view of the highly competitive educational system existing in the State party and its consequent negative effects on children's physical and mental health, the Committee recommends the State party to take appropriate steps to prevent and combat excessive stress and school phobia in light of articles 3, 6, 12, 29 and 31 of the Convention." (CRC/C/15/Add. 90, June 1998)
B, Rebuilding schools with 'inclusive' systems
Concerning rebuilding schools with ' inclusive' systems, several points need to be suggested. However it seems different from ' inclusive' systems , special schools or designated special classes are still very important institutions for students with severe disabilities. 1.8% in the UK, or 2.8% in the USA of students are provided within special schools or designated special classes for children with disabilities along with 20% in the UK or 10% - 15% in the USA (including SEN). On the other hand, if children with SNE have to be included within regular education system, 'special provisions' must not be restricted to those with disabilities. Kaoru Yamaguti, professor emeritus of Tokyo Gakugei University, has recently suggested inclusive education as follows 0 All students belong in principle to the primary and junior high schools of their residential area. 0 Every effort must be done to help children with SEN in regular classes. ®Flexible class sizes, instruction time, curriculum, part time instruction in special classes for every kind of disabilities are needed. 0 Part time instruction in regular classes for those of special classes. 0 Special schools must not be separated from regular schools. They may be a guidance center for children with SEN.
Concerning burnout issues, ILO has so far suggested that teachers' job design is very important for caring children with SEN. For the first time in 1981, the Joint Meeting on Conditions of Work of Teachers (ILO & UNTESCO) pointed out as follows
"The question of heterogenous classes was closely linked to the relationship between class size and teachers' health. It was clear to those engaged in teaching that the integration of handicapped, immigrant and minority pupils into regular classrooms created psychological, intellectual and physical demands on teachers. In developing countries there was also the problem of educational handicaps which arose from gaps in pre-primary or primary education and lack of support facilities. While teachers favoured integration - it was a question of human rights for these children - they should not bear the burden alone. The present state of affairs could be improved by reducing class sizes for heterogenous classes, in addition to providing special classes and small groups for difficult children with a view to accelerating their integration into normal classroom situations."
Along with these comments and the like from international viewpoints, particular attention must be paid to provisions for SEN within regular classes such as modifled curriculum for them or elaborated teachers' job design etc. Many teachers are in charge of all subjects at the primary level. Class sizes must be reduced. The employment of subject-professionals at 5th & 6th primary grades must be increased and so on. Though the Japanese highly intensive education system is sometimes envied by foreign countries, the role overload by teachers in Japan is often overlooked. Especially the quantitative workload at home after leaving school is found to be an important factor of burnout. But however strange it may sound, there is no widespread objection to this work overload in Japan. I think the nature of teaching itself closely connected with SEN issues concerns with this situation. First, teachers are not established professions in the true sense of the word that lead to the rewarding feeling in charge of guidance for SEN within regular classes or special classes. Second, it is natural to think that teachers' jobs should have always over-work due to their "borderlessness" meaning teaching work doesn't stop at 5pm, during a recess, or even during a holiday. Third, because of this "borderlessness", even teachers don't notice their role overload. Fourth, other working people tend to think teaching relatively is not a hard job. Fifth, the feeling of "guilt" makes teachers think that their role overload is natural. Nevertheless not so many things have been suggested so far in Japan except providing part time guidance circular in special classes lbr them since 1992. I am sure that in order to prevent 'educational collapses' or 'burnout of teachers's or to overcome educational hardships, more help in the field of 'inclusive' systems is urgently needed.
References
(1) Kaoru Yamaguti, 'Tokushukyoiku no kaikaku', Iwate kyoiku center, 2000.
(2)JMEWCT/' 1981/' 8, 'Report of the Joint Meeting on Conditions of Work of Teachers', 1981.
(3)Satomi Saitoh, unpublished thesis under my advise 'A study on educational difficulties' the University of Shiga Prefecture, 1999
(4) Osaka kyobun center, 'Unpublished interim report on children' 2000.
(5) Yagi et al., 'Unpublished reports on teacher burnout' for the 9th World Congress of Comparative Education Societies at the University of Sydney (1996), the 2nd Annual Conference of the Comparative Education Society of Asia at Beijing (1998), and the Oxford International Conference on Education and Development at New College Oxford, UK (1997: 1999).
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