"I Don't Dare to Think About the Future": Findings Possibilities for Dyslexic Students in China

• In Event: Fairmont Roundtable Session Sixteen
  In Roundtable Session: Global Education, Culture, and Learner-Centered Practices (Table 15)

Abstract

This paper analyzes interviews with three dyslexic students in China’s public school system and their parents, to understand the experiences and meaning-making around dyslexic identity in the context of China. Through Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis, this study presented how dyslexic students and their parents understood dyslexic identity as fitting into an unaccommodating educational system, and furthermore, how they navigated the students’ educational trajectories. Intersectionality turned out to be a key framework as the findings revealed that family’s wealth and parent’s educational attainment impacted the participants’ relationship with China’s education system. This study serves as a starting point for learning disability justice in China and demonstrates the necessity of extending intersectionality frameworks to international educational research.

Authors

• Skylar Hou, Teachers College, Columbia University
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer Wallace Jacoby, Mount Holyoke College
  Non-Presenting Author