The completion of the project – THANK YOU!

My one-year postdoctoral fellowship has come to its end. It has been a busy but extremely full-filling year. I am deeply grateful that I have had the opportunity to disseminate my research to stakeholders in China, and learnt a lot more from them about current challenges in influencing policy and practice for the inclusion of disabled children in education.

The summary report of the CECI project, as below, has been published on the Research Fish website:

“This report summarises the significant achievements of the project, and key lessons learnt about the challenges for generating research impact in China. No new research was conducted as part of the project.

The project, with its thoughtfully designed activities, successfully engaged diverse groups of key stakeholders in China including school practitioners, families, NGOs, academics, policy-makers and international agencies, to generate sustainable impact at all levels to promote new understandings of how to support disabled children’s access inclusive and quality education. Following the issue of a key national policy which highlighted a commitment to an inclusive education in China in early 2017, by all possible means, this project successfully ensured its presence in the on-going debates and developments to influence the discourse to benefit disabled children’s equal participation and welfare in education.

Recognition was given to the high relevance of the research: the research evidence and suggestions were consulted to inform national policy-making on educational provision for disabled children by the Ministry of Education; disability rights campaigning, independent research and the UN CRPD Shadow Report writing by Disabled People’s Organisations; and UNESCO’s engagement in China on disability and sustainable development issues. School practitioners valued the authenticity of the research that spoke truth of the highly performative education system. By participating in workshops, they felt inspired by learning about the possibility of ensuring inclusion through innovative approaches, and one institution sought collaboration in a pilot study to support teachers’ professional development.

New reciprocated research partnerships have been established, which were international, cross-sectorial, and interdisciplinary. As the first research that examined disabled children’s inclusion in education in China with a critical perspective, the research was found to be useful by international academic communities, such as those in inclusive and special education, disability studies, international development, social policy, law and human rights, childhood studies, china studies and digital education, to understand better of China’s development in this aspect, inform their teaching and supervision of postgraduate students who were interested in related topics, and open up new research questions. The project engaged academics in China on new paradigms such as involving children in research, qualitative inquiry, and collaborative relations with users. New opportunities were generated - visits of student teachers, academics, headteachers from China, consultancy on civil society organisations’ projects, and collaboration for proposals of special issue, a conference panel and funding applications. These exchanges, with an agenda of promoting inclusive education, also broadened existing UK-China collaboration in education.

The challenges that might have compromised outcomes within this one-year project were: culture in Chinese academia that marginalises female and early career researchers, and prefers ‘white faces’ for ‘international’ collaboration over researchers of other colours including Chinese ethnicity; internet censorship in China that blocks Western websites and social media platforms; time-consuming tasks of events organisation, administration and translation with no extra support personnel; long cycle of academic publication; no suitable further GCRF funding call and difficulties to join UK research teams as a postdoctoral researcher when China is being removed from international aid schemes.”

How the project can be taken forward has also been reported on the Research Fish website:

“I am editing an academic paper on the findings of the PhD research for submission to a peer-reviewed international journal that engages disability issues in the Global South. The experience of conducting this project will inform a paper, to be presented at the Australian Association of Asian Studies Conference and submitted to a special issue call of Disability & Society. An abstract for a book chapter, co-authored with Lani Florian, has been accepted for the book ‘Promoting social inclusion: co-creating environments that foster equity and belonging’ edited by Kate Scorgie and Chris Forlin (Emerald Group Publishing). A special issue proposal, co-editing with Paula Flynn, will be submitted to a peer-reviewed international journal.

Besides academics, the research could be taken forward by policy-makers, disability communities, school practitioners, human rights activists, local NGOs that work in education, inclusive society, and sustainable development, international agencies such as UNESCO and UNICEF, and other UK organisations that operate in China on disability welfare such as Save the Children, China Vision, and Leonard Cheshire, and those that have not been aware of the need to support this group of children who are facing discrimination, marginalisation and segregation in education in China.

The academic dissemination will involve the submission of three single authored papers to peer-reviewed journals, one of which is also part of a special issue that is going to be proposed by me and another editor, and one co-authored book chapter. Travel fund has been secured to support presenting the project at a high-profile international conference in 2018, as part of an international panel that I will chair. Besides academics, the research could be taken forward by policy-makers, disability communities, school practitioners, human rights activists, local NGOs that work in education, inclusive society, and sustainable development, international agencies such as UNESCO and UNICEF, UK organisations that operate in China on disability welfare such as Save the Children, China Vision, and Leonard Cheshire, and other organisations that have not been aware of the need to support this group of children's participation and well-being who are facing discrimination, marginalisation and segregation in Chinese education system.”

I have moved on to work on other projects in 2018, including Lecture Recording and Inclusive Practice; Speculative Future: Artificial Intelligence and Education Inclusion; and Telling it Like it is: Low Income Families’ Experiences with Deaf Children in the UK. Nevertheless, the friendships with my partners in China continue to grow stronger, and we look forward to future opportunities of working together again. I will keep updating the reference list (you can find this on the ‘recourse’ page), which has been found helpful by students who were new to this topic. I will also continue to update this blog, to offer some comments on disability and inclusive education in China.

This venture has been greatly inspired by the children I met, who wished for respect, happiness, opportunities to learn and achieve, and belongingness. I hope I have kept my promise to everyone who supported this research by making it helpful for improving the circumstances faced by many other more disabled children in the country.