Although school engagement is crucial to child development, research on children with intellectual disabilities in mainstream schools is scant. This sequential, explanatory mixed-methods study examined the ways in and extent to which children with intellectual disabilities participate in mainstream school activities, as well the personal and environmental factors that affect their participation. A total of 101 general teachers provided quantitative data, while eight children with intellectual impairments and their teachers and peers provided qualitative data. In the quantitative survey, no significant differences were observed between children with and those without intellectual disabilities regarding school absence, but a low similarity existed in their extent of participation. Children with intellectual disabilities engaged most frequently in life-skills and after-school activities and least frequently in social and volunteer activities. School participation was affected by the degree of disability and environmental variables. We derived two themes from qualitative research: (1) school participation of children with intellectual disabilities; and (2) factors associated with school participation of children with intellectual disabilities. The results suggest strategies that may promote the participation of children with intellectual disabilities in mainstream schools.

This study examined teacher behaviours, students\' academic engagement, and classroom ecology in mainstream classrooms including children with intellectual disabilities, and examined the differences in academic engagement for students with and without intellectual disabilities. A mixed-method research methodology was employed. The study demonstrated that children with intellectual disabilities exhibited high level of engagement in the following situations: the classroom layout used grouping, the classroom organisation combined groups and independent learning, the learning tasks included reading aloud, copying, watching videos, and doing homework, and teachers paid attention to all students or to children with intellectual disabilities individually and walked around the classroom during lesson time. English was the discipline with most active engagement among children with intellectual disabilities, followed by music, art, science, Chinese, sports, social studies, and mathematics. Finally, academic engagement of children with and without intellectual disabilities was mostly passive. We discuss the factors related to academic engagement of children with intellectual disabilities and provide suggestions for improving their self-management skills and classroom organisation.

This research examined the effects of principal transformational leadership on teachers\' inclusive teaching behaviour, with a particular inquiry into the mediating effects of teachers\' inclusive role identity and efficacy for inclusive practice, as informed by identity theory and social cognitive theory. Structural equation modelling with bootstrapping estimation was conducted using data from 712 teachers delivering inclusive teaching in primary or secondary schools in China. The results revealed the sequentially mediating mechanisms of teachers\' inclusive role identity and efficacy underlying the principal transformational leadership effects on teachers\' inclusive teaching behaviour. Research implications are also discussed.

Relatively little is known about education placements for children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in China. While disparities in ASD diagnoses and services for the population broadly are often documented, the presence and determinants of differences in the educational placement of ASD children are less studied and understood. By identifying who is likely to be in segregated settings, we can discern how to best support them and facilitate a possible transition to a less restrictive setting. This study describes four placements (regular schools, special schools, institutions, homes) and their influencing factors retrospectively in a large sample (n = 2,190) of Chinese primary school-aged children (6-12 years old). We divided ASD into severe and mild to moderate categories for analysis. Children with ASD were more likely to study in a regular school (48.60%), while 13.88% were in a special school. Children with severe ASD were placed in less regular settings than children with mild to moderate ASD. However, families with higher socioeconomic status (SES) were more likely to place their children in regular schools than lower SES families if their children experienced mild to moderate symptoms. Children with severe ASD were more likely to be placed in expensive institutions for families with higher SES than those with lower SES. SES disparities in educational placement existed and had two manifestations. It is important to characterize educational placements of students with ASD to determine the extent to which they are placed in general education settings, which are often the preferred placement.

UNASSIGNED: This study aims to explore the impact of primary school teachers\' empathy and efficacy for inclusive practice on the relationship between trait mindfulness and inclusive educational attitudes.
UNASSIGNED: A total of 606 primary school teachers were tested using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire, Interpersonal Response Index Scale, Teacher Self-efficacy for Inclusive Practice Scale, and Teachers\' Multidimensional Attitudes toward Inclusive Education Scale.
UNASSIGNED: Primary school teachers\' trait mindfulness is significantly positively correlated with inclusive educational attitudes. Primary school teachers\' trait mindfulness has an indirect impact on inclusive education attitudes through empathy, and primary school teachers\' trait mindfulness has an indirect impact on inclusive education attitudes through teacher efficacy for inclusive practice. In addition, empathy and teacher efficacy for inclusive practice play a sequential mediating role between primary school teachers\' trait mindfulness and inclusive education attitudes.
UNASSIGNED: This empirical study reveals that empathy and efficacy for inclusive practice play a sequential mediating role between primary school teachers\' trait mindfulness and inclusive education attitudes. On one hand, this research contributes to enriching the outcomes in the field of inclusive education for primary school teachers, providing a theoretical foundation for the study of their inclusive education attitudes. On the other hand, the study offers a detailed explanation of the psychological mechanisms behind the impact of mindfulness traits on the inclusive education attitude of primary school teachers, guiding schools in implementing mindfulness-based intervention programs.

Laws and policies, no matter how well designed, can fail if they are not implemented correctly. This can occur when there is no interaction between policymakers and those who are working on the ground. The purpose of this study was to determine the understanding of Chinese stakeholders regarding legislation, policy, and law associated with the provision of special education and explore its implications for student wellbeing and mental health. Two questions were posed: (1) Does a stakeholder\'s attitude towards legislation, policy, and law regarding special education impact their role or responsibilities? (2) In what ways do stakeholders interact with legislation, laws, and policies regarding special education and their work experience in the field? Using in-depth interviews as the basis for the study, researchers gained valuable insight into how administrators, practitioners, and academics perceive laws and policies. Participants exhibited exaggerated attitudes and over-interpretations of some of these items, which we attribute to partly real factors, as well as nationalistic or patriotic feelings. The evidence included calls for specific laws and policies as well as a switch from a top-down to a bottom-up approach to reform to bridge the disparity between different regions in the country. As the participants agreed, there have also been remarkable achievements in building a more comprehensive and inclusive system over the last decade. However, the gaps between rural and urban areas, primary and middle schools, high schools and vocational schools need to be addressed urgently in specific laws and policies. Addressing these disparities will not only improve the overall quality of special education but also have significant implications for student wellbeing and mental health. By ensuring that all students have access to tailored support and resources, policymakers can foster a more inclusive and supportive environment that promotes positive mental health outcomes for all learners.

Despite the importance of career guidance and life planning education in helping students\' career development, considerably limited research has been done to provide a good educational assessment to identify SEN students\' strengths and weaknesses of career adaptability. This study aimed to assess the factor structure of the career adaptability scale in mainstream secondary students with special educational needs. The results support adequate reliabilities of the total scale and subscales of the CAAS-SF among over 200 SEN students. The results also support the four-factor structure of the career adaptability construct in assessing career concern, control, curiosity and confidence. We also found its measurement invariance across gender at the scalar invariance level. The positive and significant correlation patterns between boys\' and girls\' career adaptability and its sub-dimensions with self-esteem are similar. Overall, this study support that the CAAS-SF is a good measure with adequate psychometric properties for assessing and developing practical career guidance and life planning activities and programs for SEN students to support their career development needs.

Objectives: The aim of this study was to develop a scale measuring inclusive school quality from parents\' perceptions (Parents\' perceptions of Inclusive School Quality, PISQ) and investigate the perceptions of Chinese parents of children with disabilities of inclusive school quality using the PISQ scale. Method: The data for 78 parents of children with disabilities were used to measure the reliability and analyse the items of the PISQ scale. The data for 255 parents of children with disabilities were used to verify the construct validity and internal consistency of the PISQ scale and investigate parents\' perceptions of inclusive school quality in China. SPSS 21.0 and AMOS 24.0 were used for the statistical analyses. Results: The newly developed PISQ scale was found to have good construct validity and reliability. The investigation of Chinese parents of children with disabilities indicated that parents\' perception of inclusive school quality in China was at a middle-high level and that the parents of children with ASD showed the lowest perception of inclusive school quality. Conclusion: This study reports the development process of the PISQ scale and presents a valid scale for measuring inclusive school quality in the future. Additionally, this study provides implications for improving the inclusive practices of regular Chinese schools.

Although there are an increasing number of studies on assessing teacher emotions in mainstream education, there is a lack of appropriate measurement tools to evaluate the emotions of teaching assistants (TAs) who need to take care of students with a range of special educational needs (SEN). This study tested the generalizability of the 24-item teacher emotion inventory (TEI), among 204 TAs from 122 secondary schools with inclusive education in Hong Kong. We conducted both confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and Rasch analysis to test the within-network validity of the TEI. For the between-network validity, we examined the relationships between TAs\' emotions and their attitude toward inclusive education. The Rasch analysis supported the scale\'s dimensionality and item fit statistics. The CFA supported the five-factor solution of the TEI. The results also showed statistically significant correlations between positive emotions (joy and love) and TAs\' attitudes toward inclusive education. TAs\' negative emotions (anxiety, anger, and stress) appeared to be negatively correlated with their attitude toward inclusive education. The results supported that TEI is a useful tool to assess the emotions of TAs that play a pivotal role in assisting both school teachers and SEN students, who are more likely to face increased emotional challenges than those not needing to educate SEN students. Implications of this study to enrich the current scope of research on understanding teacher emotions across educational levels and settings are discussed.

A quasi-experimental group design with repeated measures at pretest and posttest was employed to examine the effect of teaching with picture books about autism on improving typically developing children\'s acceptance and attitude toward children with autism in this study. The participants were children with autism and their typically developing peers in two regular elementary schools, one from Hangzhou (as experimental group) and the other from Ningbo (as control group). A six-week long teaching with picture books about autism was carried out for the thirty-six typically developing children in the experimental group. The typically developing children\'s attitude toward their classmate with autism was assessed before and after the experiment for both experimental and control groups. The results indicated that teaching with picture books about autism improved the peer\'s acceptance of children with autism in three domains: basic understanding, emotional attitude, and behavioral tendency, with high social validity. However, the quality of peer relationship between children with autism and their typically developing peers was not increased significantly during the study.