THE JAPANESE JOURNAL OF EDUCATIONAL RESEARCH
Online ISSN : 2187-5278
Print ISSN : 0387-3161
ISSN-L : 0387-3161
Volume 86, Issue 2
Displaying 1-23 of 23 articles from this issue
Special Issue: Education and Translation
  • Naoko SAITO
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 162-175
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     Academic discourse in education is dominated by the idea of mutual understanding and interactive communication in internationalization. In reality, however, various kinds of one-directionality prevent us from being engaged in mutual learning. In response to the need to realize genuinely bidirectional international exchange in education, this paper proposes a turn from one-directional and one-dimensional communication to bidirectional translation. Translation here is not simply an inter-lingual exchange between two different language systems, matching one word to another: rather it more broadly involves human transformation as a quality of human life, in recognition of the nature of human being as linguistic. Through this broader and deeper sense of translation, the paper points to forms of other-directed international academic exchange in education in which we can accept different cultures as other, and through which we can learn from the other.

     First, the problem of monolingualism is illustrated, along with some fallacies that arise in connection with language. A way out of the constraints of monolingual mentalities is sought from the perspective of translation as an alternative way of looking at language.

     Second, from the standpoint of Stanley Cavell's idea of philosophy as translation, the paper explores translation as a metonym for human life. Cavell shows that translation is not simply an interaction between different language systems: rather, as part of language's intrinsic nature, translation permeates our life as a form of human transformation.

     Philosophy as translation highlights the experience of strangeness, the sense of a gap, that is epitomized by our experience of the untranslatable. In encountering the obscure and the ambiguous, we are compelled to make judgments within a position of uncertainty: our ground is destabilized, and we lose ourselves. It is through such experience of self-abrogation that we learn to attend to the other, in a process of self-transcendence.

     Finally, from the perspective of philosophy as translation, the paper offers three proposals for going beyond the monolingualism that permeates international academic exchange in education. The first is to move from communication to translation in international exchange: from the symmetrical discourse of mutual respect and from a presumed commensurability to the acceptance of a relationship of disequilibrium — one that acknowledges an unbridgeable gap. Second, with regard to engagement in cross-cultural communication, philosophy as translation presents a third way beyond ethnocentric consolidation of cultural identities, on the one hand, and beyond borderless cosmopolitanism, on the other. What is at stake here is the exposure of one's own self and culture to the other. Through such self-criticism, we become cosmopolitan. Third, it is proposed that these shifts in our thinking about language, self and culture direct us towards other-directed international exchange Reconstruction of an academic system requires the internal human transformation of each participant and the cultivation of the art of translation. Such other-directed exchange is educational by nature, and it involves educational studies as a mediator between different academic disciplines.

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  • Haruhiko MATSUSHITA
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 176-187
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     The purpose of this paper is to search for the genesis of kanji and kana mixed writing in modern Japanese, and to clarify the correlation between Japanese notation and the transference of foreign ideas.

     First, I present a brief description of the definition of translation in translation studies. For instance, Schleiermacher suggests that the ideal translation creates an image that incorporates great familiarity with the foreign language, in assigning importance to a sense of foreignness.

     Second, I describe how the Japanese devised and developed an ingenious annotation system called kanbun-kundoku, the method of reading Chinese texts. This method allows Japanese speakers to read original Chinese texts without translation. As a result, critical references to translation were rarely found in intellectual history, until Kokugaku (study of ancient Japanese classics) scholars who studied Japanese classics criticized the kanbun-kundoku method.

     Third, I argue that nationalism is a form of translation. Following the French Revolution, ethnic languages were established as official languages and nationalism was uplifted. Japanese as the standard language became an issue in the elevation of nationalism in the early 20th century. As the result of national language policy, the vernacular languages scattered across the Japanese archipelago were destroyed.

     Fourth, I briefly describe Nishida's idea of pure experience. He conceives of the concrete ground of reality in terms of an immediate state prior to differentiation between the experiencing subject and the experienced object. Against object-centered logic (grammatical subject-predicate), he proposes a perspectival shift away from the objectified object. The shift allows for an unobjectifiable dimension, “the predicate-plane,” which ultimately designates the whole situation. The predicate qua basho (locus) signifies the “universal” as the pre-objective surrounding background. Nishida's analysis of predicate-centered logic suggests the logic implied in Japanese notation, kanji-kana mixed writing. Based on Nishida's logic of the basho, Tokieda proposes a unique grammar which articulates the function of postpositions in the Japanese language.

     Lastly, I discuss the correlation between Japanese notation and the transference of foreign ideas in the history of ideas in Japan. Some critics argue that Japanese have received foreign ideas but have never accepted them. This has been caused partly by the characteristics of Japanese notation. I suggest a shift of framework towards re-positioning the self in the history of ideas in Japan.

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  • Miho HASHIMOTO, Chie ENZA
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 188-200
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     Historical studies on educational research in Japan have advanced little, yet have been assumed to be fundamentally and inevitably important for discussions of the reorganization of future educational research. Previous studies have described the history of educational research as the history of educational theory. To break this tradition, we must be aware that while theory constitutes an essential part of educational research, an examination of the characteristics and significance of theory regarding educational practice has been proposed but not yet conducted. Toward the historical reflection of the development of educational research, this article discusses the character of Taisho new education practitioners' educational research.

     The Taisho New Education Movement, conversely, has been generally assumed to be a reform movement in school practice, but its contribution to new educational research has been largely overlooked. Previous studies indicate that Sawayanagi Masataro, a prominent leader of this movement, wrote A Practical Pedagogy (1909) in the late Meiji period as an antithesis of pedagogies in academic circles; however, they have failed to trace his work's influence. Through extensive research into educational journals and case studies of Kitazawa Taneichi and Oikawa Heiji (leading practitioners of Taisho new education), we clarified that Sawayanagi's proposals stimulated and advanced practitioners' educational research. We discovered the following two characteristics of practitioners' educational research and propose the need to shift our research focus from the existing “history of educational theory” to the “history of educational research.”

     First, practitioners' educational research developed through the supporting networks of Sawayanagi's call for the establishment of educational research based on “educational facts.” For instance, the Educational Instruction Research Association was officially formed in 1910, following the publication of A Practical Pedagogy. It held regular monthly meetings in which numerous practitioners participated, examining and discussing a broad range of issues about educational theory and practice. Although previous studies have focused on the genealogies of pedagogical cliques formed by each academic institution, we cannot trace the development of practitioners' research in the same way.

     Second, through Kitazawa and Oikawa, we demonstrate that these practitioners never dismissed educational theories: instead, they valued them highly. Given that theoretical research and practical research are inextricably connected, they saw the latter as the creative and cooperative processes of experiments, not merely the adaptive processes of fixed theories. While they learned from John Dewey, Henri Bergson and others, they encouraged practitioners to think of theories as a base for their creation of original practices and warned against introducing finished practical models embodied by others. We demonstrate that it is impossible to approach this experimental process through the existing frameworks focused on the “transportation” of theories from overseas or literal translation. It is necessary to approach the whole process of educational research from the perspectives of cultural translation and social translation.

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  • Eiichi AOKI
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 201-212
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     Purpose: This paper uses a literature review to clarify how pedagogy transfers and processes knowledge from other fields toward contribution to the social sciences, using the politics of education as an example. It is based on the premise that the major disciplines of the politics of education should be politics, economics, sociology, history, and philosophy. The author's position is to formulate political science as a major discipline.

     Method: This review uses 103 refereed papers published in the “Bulletin of the Japan Educational Administration Society” from 2000 to 2018. The analysis method calculates the ratio of documents cited from other fields in each paper's thesis.

     Analysis Results: The citation rate from other fields was 28% throughout the period. Comparing the citation rate in the 2000s to that of the 2010s, the citation and adoption rate from other fields was higher in the 2000s. The number of papers submitted was almost the same for the 2000s and the 2010s.

     Conclusion: From the above, it can be demonstrated that transferring knowledge from other fields has led to the vitalization of the politics of education. Also, it is evident that the politics of education is now losing vitality.

     Discussion: From the above, it is apparent that it is always essential to transfer knowledge from other fields in order to revitalize the politics of education. However, the politics of education cannot contribute to the social sciences merely by transferring knowledge. We must contribute to political science as a major discipline. Through this ‘cross-cultural’ exchange between the politics of education and political science, it is possible to ascertain the accuracy of the transfer of knowledge of political science into the politics of education. Next, we need to consider ways in which the politics of education contributes to political science. For example, it is possible to connect current knowledge in the politics of education with street-level bureaucracy studies in political science by focusing on education as a human service field.

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  • Kampei HAYASHI
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 213-224
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     With the emergence and growth of the practice of education export and import, comparative education is facing a new phenomenon. Conventionally, comparativists have discussed issues using the concepts of ‘policy transfer’ and ‘policy lending/borrowing’. Cowen (2006) divides policy transfer into three stages: transfer, translation, and transformation. Policy transfer in education has led ultimately to transformation, where the original translation becomes indigenous or, conversely, extinct. However, in the case of education export and import, policy transformation is inherently avoided, mainly to maintain the superiority of the export side and thus secure profit from the trade.

     This new phenomenon is illustrated in this paper through the case of the business of the Partnership Schools for Liberia (PSL). PSL is an attempt to outsource governmental preschools and primary schools to non-state actors, including for-profit organizations, who are mostly foreign-based. PSL's aim is to ‘1) select, commission, and contract non-state operators to run 94 public primary schools, leading to higher learning outcomes in literacy and numeracy; 2) build the capacity of the Ministry of Education to effectively play the role of commission, regulator, and quality assurer to PSL schools, and 3) conduct a rigorous external evaluation to measure the performance (quality, cost-effectiveness, equity) of PSL schools in comparison with traditional public schools' (Ministry of Education 2017).

     Three issues are raised through this case. First, to secure fairness, PSL schools are outsourced to several organizations; however, the reality is that the actors' monetary flow and personal relationships are overlapped and interrelated. Second, the Liberian government outsources all three areas of PSL's aims to foreign organizations, which creates structural difficulties for indigenisation in the local context. Despite the Education Minister's ‘vision for transformational public schools in every district across the country, providing access to every child’, PSL contractors have the power to intentionally control the degree of indigenisation. Third, by outsourcing to various actors whose countries have achieved far more advanced technologies and methodologies in education, certain area of Liberia experience the leapfrog phenomenon. In the ordinary development process, Liberia is clearly in the phase of quantitative expansion. However, by ‘buying’ a ‘school-in-a-box’ product and carrying out external evaluations based on student performance, PSL schools skip the phase of quantitative expansion and move directly to quality evaluation. This is a unique case.

     Finally, by rethinking and reflecting on the framework of comparative education theory, the case of Liberia can be defined as a new type of policy transfer that lacks the transformation phase. It is a challenge for comparative education to refine and develop a framework to analyse cases in education export/import, where a country adopts the policy of ‘buying’ a ‘school-in-a-box’.

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  • Akiyoshi YONEZAWA, Sae SHIMAUCHI, Jing LIU
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 225-236
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     This article aims to examine how the concept of the “university” has formed and developed in East Asia, with a particular focus on translation as a function for the transmission, consolidation, and sharing of knowledge. In East Asia, universities were formed from the late 19th century on in the manner of modern nation-states, following the models of the Western world. Under the strong influence of nationalism, these establishments were created using their own national languages. For example, there was a plan to make English the official language when Japan introduced its modern university and education system. However, this idea was rejected based on the argument that broader participation in education could be assured through instruction and scholarly activities in the language already widely used within the society (i.e., Japanese). Through the examination of literature in four languages (Japanese, Chinese, Korean, and English) on East Asian higher education, this article examines the development and formation of the concept of the “university” in various states and regions of East Asia. It then analyzes how the formation and development of the “university” as a concept has been influenced by changing international and national social contexts, first from the construction of modern university systems to the end of the Cold War, and then up through today in the age of globalization. The article argues that, in East Asian universities and societies, the transmission, consolidation, and sharing of knowledge through translation has been implemented in patterns very different from those in medieval Europe with Latin as a lingua franca or in contemporary Europe with English as a globally shared academic language. Modern universities in East Asia were established in close relation with each nation's development. In this region, the languages in use and the patterns of translation are more closely connected to the national identity that also appears in the concept of the university. The translation of knowledge at universities in East Asia tends to be implemented in a hegemonic power context rather than through voluntary academic activities. Also, the patterns and reasons for language choices (English, Chinese, or other local languages) at universities in East Asia are highly complex and geopolitically unbalanced. In these conditions, East Asian societies have not yet been successful in forming a common understanding of the concept of their own universities. In conclusion, the article discusses the potential of the universities in East Asia based on their indigenous academic approaches, represented as “Asia as method”. The article also raises concerns over losses in translation that may lead to misunderstandings of the essential characteristics of universities, such as academic freedom and university autonomy.

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  • Mika OKABE
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 237-248
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     Education on the topic of disasters often starts from, or focuses on, passing down disaster memories. To pass down disaster memories, the memories of disaster experiences that are unique to the experiencers must be carefully rendered (translated), so that they can be transmitted in a form that is easily understood by successors who have not experienced the disaster themselves. This essay clarifies the structure of the translation of disaster memories between experiencers and successors, and considers the educational significance of the practical application of such translations.

     Section 1 describes the purpose of this essay while Section 2 examines the reasons for the emphasis on memories in disaster education.

     Disasters have the power to interrupt and redirect the historical timeline of a community or nation. This gives rise to the need to seamlessly connect the sequence of events preceding a disaster with the events following it, and to reframe the result as the unified and legitimate history of a community or nation. The established dominant history of a community or nation is familiar to the majority of citizens, but it may be alien to minorities and at times may also suppress the realities of their lives. To reflect the complete picture of a disaster, it is important to construct alternative historical narratives using the memories of the affected minority population, in order to create a dialogue with the familiar history of majority populations. Doing so allows for the description of a history that is inclusive of the diverse lives of people who experienced the disaster, in a way that combines many perspectives.

     Section 3 focuses on storytelling and listening exchanges in passing down disaster memories and examines the structure and characteristics of such exchanges. Experiences of disasters may often be individual and isolated from others, but if experiencers weave their memories into coherent and consistent narratives in a language shared with successors, these narratives can act as a medium for smooth communication between experiencers and successors, thereby contributing to healing the isolation often experienced by experiencers.

     However, the process of weaving narratives also exposes what cannot be expressed in words or translated, that which risks hollowing out the narratives. Successors hear narratives woven in this way and attempt to understand them. However, they may never hear them perfectly, because the translation of disaster memories is often characterized by an extreme ambivalence that simultaneously seeks understanding of memories and rejects that understanding in equal measures.

     Nevertheless, if both experiencers and successors are sincere and truthful about the existence of matters that cannot be expressed in words nor directly translated when communicating disaster memories, they can discover the potential for a new self, or community or nation, constructed in a form that differs from that of the here and now.

     Introducing these transformations in research topics in education studies may also open up possibilities for transforming education and education studies in forms that differ from the here and now.

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Paper
  • Sachiko ASAI
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 249-261
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     The purpose of this paper is to clarify the relationship between pedagogical documentation and assessment/evaluation through an examination of the discussions of Carlina Rinaldi, Gunilla Dahlberg, and Hillevi Lenz Taguchi.

     Pedagogical documentation is spreading as a tool of assessment, but some questions are still unanswered. Is it really possible to assess/evaluate using documentation as a tool? If so, what does assessment/evaluation mean?

     Pedagogical documentation is an educational tool used in early childhood education in Reggio Emilia and Reggio-inspired contexts to enact the learning process in the classroom. Rinaldi, the previous president of Reggio Children, said of the relationship between documentation and assessment/evaluation, “I feel that recognizing documentation as a possible tool for assessment/evaluation gives us an extremely strong ‘antibody’ to a proliferation of assessment/evaluation tools which are more and more anonymous, decontextualized and only apparently objective and democratic.” I explore the possibility of pedagogical documentation as an “antibody.”

     The findings are as follows.

     (1) Rinaldi's discussion of documentation focuses on the aspect of valuing. According to her consideration of documentation as assessment/evaluation, the values are identified by the teachers in children's language and behavior and demonstrated to the children. In this context, valuing is not done intentionally; rather, it is inevitable and inherent in documentation. In addition, the indicators of valuing are not objective and external to the teacher, but within the teacher, and are visualized and shared through documentation. Rinaldi finds assessment/evaluation to be a political and ethical function in the process of documentation.

     (2) Dahlberg, an emeritus professor at the University of Stockholm who led the ECE reform of Reggio Inspired in Sweden, discusses documentation with a focus on the aspect of meaning making. Dahlberg and her co-researchers take the perspective of “social constructionism” rather than “social constructivism”. According to their argument, pedagogical documentation plays a central role in the discourse of meaning making, because it enables us to take responsibility for creating our own meanings and our own decisions. Pedagogical documentation is also an arena in which the multiple voices of children, teachers, parents, administrators, politicians, and others can be heard.

     (3) Lenz Taguchi, a professor at the University of Stockholm, discusses documentation with a focus on the aspect of translation. She takes the perspective of an intra-action pedagogy against “constructivism” and “social constructivism.” From her perspective, the documenter needs to pay attention not only to the relationships among humans, but also to those between non-human objects and humans. Her argument aims to represent an antibody to the decontextification and simplification in quality assessment/evaluation by increasing the complexity and diversity of the context described in documentation.

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  • Atsushi SUZUKI
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 262-274
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     In recent years, as a consequence of the diversification of Japanese society, attempts are taking place to reconstruct the commonalities in the norms and customs of people that are essential for the unity of one society. However, since people living in the society have become quite diverse, this diversity must be also maintained, even when the commonalities are indispensable. Though there are already some approaches in the field of moral education to construct some kind of universality and agreement, they seem still not to be enough. In this study, I will discuss, with the help of the theories of N. Luhmann, how we should deal with moral education in a diversified society.

     According to the theories of Luhmann, known as social system theory, the continuance of communication among individuals is essential for existence of the social system (in this sense, we are definitely autonomic systems). However, our communication with other people is caused by the social system itself. Luhmann says that our psychological systems do not cause or control our communication directly. Only communication can communicate. For smooth communication, individuals as systems have developed several forms of strategic communication. Luhmann focuses on “trust” and “expectation” as forms of communication in particular.

     These two forms work, however, exclusively between the systems (individuals) that have already started communication. Before the beginning of communication, it is necessary to distinguish those with whom communication is effective from those with whom it is not. For this distinction, we use morals based on the binary code “respect/disregard.” If we regard other systems (individuals) as “worthy of respect”, we “include” them in the network of communication. If they are disregarded, then they are automatically excluded from communication.

     Nevertheless, this binary code “respect/disregard” does not always end up with exclusion, but also includes the possibility of re-inclusion among the excluded systems (individuals) as long as the programs they are based on have commonalities. Even groups based on different programs are able to learn the tendencies of behavior of other groups, when they continuously observe each other, so that they can acknowledge another group as a communication partner. The mutual observation of groups can inform them of the tendencies of behavior of other groups and, therefore, come up to the mutual “expectations” (namely, “respect”) of each group.

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  • Hiroshi SUZUKI
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 275-286
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     In recent years, as symbolized by frequent terrorist attacks in various parts of the world and trends in national security policies, the meaning of the word peace is coming to a turning point. Thereby, peace education will be required to enrich the contents more than ever. This paper aims at building a theoretical foundation to make peace education more effective.

     Theories of peace education have mainly been formulated by researchers who specialize in peace studies. Among these, the “positive peace” theory advocated by Johan Galtung has produced various results that contribute to real dispute settlement and peace construction. Elsewhere, in Japan's postwar peace education, the method of preaching the importance of peace while relying on anti-war slogans has been widely accepted, and it is not necessarily possible to find an organic connection between the theory of peace studies and the practice of peace education.

     This paper considers the peace theory of Kant, who was involved in the establishment of the philosophical foundation of thought on peace. Kant, in his book Toward Perpetual Peace (1975), does not just deny the existence of war itself. Rather, admitting that it is inevitable that people will live in a state of war as long as they live in society, he explains what people need to build a peaceful state.

     This paper discusses four points. First, through the outline of Kant's theory of peace, it examines the significance of this logic in modern times. Second, it clarifies the meaning of “mechanism of nature,” a key concept that Kant presents as guaranteeing the realization of perpetual peace, and verifies why this concept is used in discussing the guarantee of perpetual peace. Third, as an attempt to draw a vision of more effective peace education, it discusses the strategy of peace education that appeals to human prudence (Klugheit). However, this strategy raises doubts of not conforming to Kant's moral philosophy as it is generally understood. Therefore, fourth, the paper shows that consistency can be found between the theory of peace education appealing to prudence and Kant's moral philosophy, by incorporating the viewpoint of the law philosophy that Kant developed in the works of his later years.

     In conclusion, actual methods of peace education are not changed dramatically by constructing a new principle of peace education with Kant's theory of peace as a hint. Using anti-war ideology as the foundation of peace education should not be influenced by changing times. However, by adapting the prudent judgment that war is never rational, we will introduce a new perspective into peace education.

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  • Takanori SATO
    2019 Volume 86 Issue 2 Pages 287-299
    Published: 2019
    Released on J-STAGE: October 12, 2019
    JOURNAL FREE ACCESS

     This paper attempts to clarify the logic of the teachers' practices embedded and organized in individual sites, with an elementary school as a case study. In the daily life of individual schools, how do teachers, who build relationships with diverse children including those with disabilities, implicate and produce their educational practices? In other words, the main theme of this paper is to examine teachers' routine activities in line with educational practices.

     In this regard, this paper focuses on the activities which teachers practice in order to allow children with disabilities to participate in ordinary elementary school classrooms. The study is based on the second-grade child who is totally blind and the narrative data obtained through interviews with the special-education teacher who has been directly involved with him. In particular, the paper spotlights teachers' educational practices and support when organizing the participation of this student in an ordinary class. The paper targets these practices and tries to clarify their logic.

     After reviewing the previous research and determining the method of analysis, the analysis of empirical data is developed in sections 4 and 5. The central topic of section 4 is the educational practices related to management of social relations. In particular, the focus is on the teachers' educational practices that make sure the blind child “thanks” and “apologizes to” his classmates. Through this, the paper analyzes the logic of educational guidance that emphasizes commitment to interactional rituals. The logic produces a relational pair between “persons without disabilities and persons with disabilities,” the function of which is briefly discussed.

     In section 5, the paper considers a series of ideas on the categorization of members. Here, the paper considers the teachers' practices that organize the participation of the blind child in ordinary classwork. Given the “division of roles” among teachers, the teacher herself executes the category of “special-education teacher,” and creates a unique category between herself and the blind child. This makes the teacher's practices possible.

     Through the analysis of the teachers' practices that try to include children with disabilities in ordinary classrooms, this paper argues that depending on the position and role of special-education teachers, the membership of children with disabilities in ordinary classrooms can be vague and unstable, therefore leading to limited connectedness to the ordinary classroom. That is to say, the paper emphasizes the possibility that the practices oriented to inclusion themselves can be reversed to separate children with disabilities from ordinary classrooms.

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