Disability in Special Education: An Analysis of Introductory Special Education Textbooks in Taiwan

• Main Authors: Wen-Hui Huang, 黃文慧
• Other Authors: Hsin-Tai Lin
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2014
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/fe3r7t

博士 === 國立臺灣師範大學 === 特殊教育學系 === 102 === This research explored how introductory special education textbooks in Taiwan adopted discourses to build “disability” from 1966 to 2012. Content analysis was conducted on 17 different versions, 36 revisions of introductory special education textbooks, to examine the definition of disability on mainstream special education. Research found there were disability discourses in four periods. Despite some counter-discourse, the majority of textbooks constructed disability as an individual-specific discourse; arguing it was “deficiency”, “abnormal”, “deficiency/abnormal”, and “maladjustment” in culture and communities. It was Taiwan’s education demand and authority’s view to decide the selection of disability categories and space allocation within textbooks. Definitions of disability were largely affected from the authority of the profession and law with respect to disability. The critical perspectives of disability were vaguely noticed within the textbooks, reducing the debate of discursive contestation between history, intervention, or non-special education perspectives. The research proposes a number of implications. 1. Providing diversity and multiple paradigms of disability in special education. 2. The purpose of these textbooks is to inspire pupils to ponder over disability rather than deliver knowledge. 3. Breaking through law-based and profession-based approaches to disability. 4. Focusing on the diversity and multiple approaches to disability through trans-disciplinary dialogues.