'A Luxury for the First World': A Western perception of Hong Kong Chinese attitudes towards inclusive education

Abstract

ABSTRACT The debates I explore in this article were prompted by conversations I had with a Government Education Inspector who accompanied me on a visit to a primary school and participated in a series of workshops I organised while I was on a fellowship at Hong Kong University. May Lee's challenge to me that a non-selective education system was a luxury only the First World could afford provoked me into acknowledging a whole new dimension for our discussions of the function of segregated education for groups excluded from the mainstream. I begin by introducing the education system in Hong Kong as it was in the early 1990s. Then I go on, and discuss the activities and conversations I shared with May Lee. Patterns of inclusion and exclusion in Hong Kong reflect a deeply-respected concept of a 'good school'; special schools and classes are the only settings for the provision of additional learning support. I discuss examples of each. Finally, I discuss inclusion in education in the context of a developing country, drawing on the work of Chinese, Indian and Western writers to assess May Lee's claim. Opinion is divided. I conclude that the force of an international rhetoric of inclusion obscures the continuing operation of a cultural commitment to selection.