加拿大的融合教育運動

Inclusive Education Movement in Canada

許天威(Tian-Way Sheu)

《加拿大研究》 1期 (1996/06) Pp. 101-128

https://doi.org/10.30378/CS.199606_(1).0005

並列摘要

Canada has paid attention to the establishment of special education since 1830. Champlain of Quebec, for instance, established the first school for the deaf in Canada in 1831; the Ontario Institution for the Education and Instruction of the Blind was set up in 1872. The public have taken an attitude of “looking after the less fortune” in the treatment of children with special learning needs.
In 1970, CELDIC published One Million Children, calling for children’s right to receive education whether they are handcapped or not. In the same age, Canad’s National Institute on Mental Retardation advocated normalization principle, asserting that the learning environment of the mentally handicapped should be integrated into the mainstreamed society, instead of being institutionalized. They should not be segregated from the non-handicapped.
Canadian Community Life Association, furthermore, claimed “struggle for inclusion,” reminding the public of their respect for the handicapped’s civil rights and the idea of nondiscrimination on the basis of disabilities. The public should accept and show brotherhood to the handicapped so that all the people have equal protection. The influence of the inclusive education movement in Canada has become momentous.
The main factors which promote the inclusive education movement in Canada can be analyzed into the following five items: 1. Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms decreed in 1981; 2. Ontario’s Bill 82-the 1980 Education Amendment Act; 3. multiculturalism highly regarded in Canada; 4. the principle of normalization in human services widely practiced in North America; 5. the idea of regular education initiative (REI) generated in America in the 1900s.
The educators in Canada believe that the most significant challenge at present is that education should meet the individual learning needs of all students, handicapped or nonhandicapped. Inclusive education is exactly a merger of special and regular education into a unified education system. This educational tendency has displayed the following six features: 1. Regular class is regarded as the base of education placement; 2. Strengthen the cooperation between teachers and other specialists; 3. Use varied and effective teaching methods; 4. Assemble the needed resources and concentrate all possible strength in teaching services; 5. Improve the quality of teachers and reinforce the teachers’ sense of responsibility; 6. Perform the transition of schools with old paradigm to schools with new paradigm.