Disability, Culture, and Development

Abstract This book considers a key moment in the history of how disabilities are envisioned in Japan: the transition between two different understandings of what it means when children have difficulties learning in school. After the special education reform in 2007, Japanese children with mild cognitive and behavioral disabilities, including learning disabilities, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and high functioning autism, became eligible to receive special education services. Then, children formerly viewed as “difficult” or “slow” were officially recognized as having “disabilities” and in need of special intervention. Using ethnographic methods, we describe how educators, parents, and children at “Greenleaf Elementary School” experienced this transition and how traditional Japanese educational beliefs and practices shaped the implementation of new educational policies. This glimpse into the everyday experiences of these Japanese children, their parents, and educators reflects culturally widespread challenges faced by children with disabilities such as stigma, but also the distinctly Japanese cultural hue of adults’ and children’s responses. At Greenleaf Elementary School, adults and children addressed the “dilemma of difference” arising when children are singled out on the basis of deficits to receive necessary educational support that is different from that of their peers, and thus potentially stigmatizing. They creatively and flexibly adapted to changes, weaving new policy-generated perspectives of disabilities into traditional, Japanese cultural beliefs and practices. The Japanese case provides us with a unique vantage point to reflect back on our own policies and practices.