The Analysis of Inclusive Higher Education Patterns between the United States and China
Author(s): Jia Weizhang* and Zhang Shufang
Abstract
Inclusive education is a whole new idea of education. This education accommodates all students, opposes discrimination and exclusion, promotes active participation. It stresses educational equality for all people. In China, the disabled is often regarded as the weak, so sympathy, humanistic care are usually cast upon them. In the United States, the disabled has got the same equal rights on education as the other people after a long struggle against discrimination and exclusion, so the disabled there prefer personality respect to simple sympathy. In the universities of China, both the hardware and software facilities are not enough for the disabled, so they will overcome more obstacles to study in universities than the other ones. The main reason of the differences between the two countries is that China has no strict and complete laws to protect the education rights of the disabled, while the United States has established sound laws. As a result, there are different inclusive educational patterns between the universities of China and that of the United States. In China, the inclusive higher education is based on humanistic care, while in the United States, it is based on the rules of law. The inclusive education of humanistic care, which often occupies high moral point, is usually implemented in the form of decision, outline and project that are issued from top to bottom. The one guaranteed by law, is often obtained firstly from the bottom in the form of struggle and campaign and implemented finally in the form of law. The inclusive education of humanistic care puts the disabled in a passive and vulnerable position, and advocates sympathy and protection to them, which is not conducive to the cultivation of independent personality.