동아시아 특수교육 공동체 구축을 위한 한국특수교육의 역할과 쟁점

Abstract

This paper presents three critical aspects on the role and issue of Korean special education for building an East-Asian special education community. First, I discuss the historical implications for building an East-Asian community in special education. Particularly, for three different regional areas (Korea, China, and Japan) building an East-Asian community of special education is an important goal to accomplish in the future. One of the key essences is a collaborative work among the three countries throughout sharing partnership for building an East-Asia community network in special education. Second, I discuss about issues on a common focus of the above three countries. It is successfully implementing inclusive education. Although all three countries’ ultimate goal is accomplishing inclusive education, these countries’ common reality is that special education is still separated from general education. Special education of Japan has been developed by taking a ‘supportive system for students with special needs’ since 2007, which presents a relatively progressive attempt for accomplishing inclusive education. On the other hand, China seems to be in the early stage of implementing inclusive education, given that they are more likely to educate students with disability in special schools although they also try to implement inclusive education. Last, I suggest that we need to establish the discourses of Korean special education based on our tradition, history, and philosophy for playing an important role to build an East-Asian community of special education. I emphasize that we need to discuss about establishing a ‘Korean special education’ using the discourse in the way that everyone can hear, read, and understand.