Evaluating Resilience among Differently-abled Children: A Study of Children with Disabilities in Kerala

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1.1 Introduction Every child is unique. Every child has the right to develop fully.

But, the day-to-day tasks which can be done by a normal child take more time for the differently abled or not at all. It can be said that children with disabilities have a long history of being neglected, discriminated against, pity, excluded, and marginalized as a group. According to estimates, there are around 93 million children with disabilities in the world although the numbers could be more. They are most likely to be from the poorest section of the society. They are less likely to be heard, to be educated formally or access medical services (UNICEF, 2018).

Disability is defined as “an environmentally contextualized health-related limitation in a child’s existing or emergent capacity to perform developmentally appropriate activities and participate, as desired in the society” by Neal Haflon and Kandyce Larson from the University of California- Los Angeles and Paul Newacheck and Amy Houtrow from University of California (Currie & Kahn, Spring 2012). The definition clearly states that the limitation is perceived more so socially than how it is biologically.

In many academic works, disability has been given negative connotations and is generally associated with the inability to overcome everyday tasks. Many academic writings look at how disability as such is equated with low socio-economic and health status.

Defining disability as a limitation rather than a health condition per se highlights the social and technological context of the individual. In a world with electric wheelchairs, for example, a child with impaired mobility will be less disabled than he or she would be otherwise (Currie & Kahn, Spring 2012). It follows from this that one’s environment and society shape the way in which disability is perceived or not. Family, schools, communities, peer groups as institutions, and technological advances which ease in day-to-day activities have a major role in perceiving the “disabled”.

International conventions such as the 1989 UN Convention on Rights of the Child, the 2006 UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and domestic initiatives such as the National Plan of Action for Children 2016, the Right to Education in India since 2009, etc. were framed keeping in mind the need to include the differently abled from a rights-based view for access to formal and regular education. Despite the numerous initiatives in this regard, fruitful gains haven’t been observed in the society today.

But, there have been some exceptions among them who have overcome their disability and have worked towards breaking the barriers. Even common things like mobility and access to schools and colleges, a decent employment based on one’s educational qualifications, etc. i.e. things which are accessible and available to normal children which these children are trying to seek. Thus, resilience can be defined as the ability of a person to develop positively in spite of an adversity in their life. It is a quality that enables better performance among the people. Although resilience is generally associated with a successful way of living to extreme events such as war, natural calamities or poverty, it may also be involved in the responses to the everyday social, physical and intellectual challenges that children face. According to Masten (2013), Children’s resilience depends more on the adaptive functioning of their internal systems in addition to the interactions among many other external systems in their lives.

In today’s world, where young children can experience many forms of adverse situations which have varying degrees a child not being able to express themselves fully may qualify as a mildly adverse situation while being exposed to domestic violence or war will be severe (Masten, 2013). Adding to physical or mental limitations, the children with disabilities also have challenges which might be normal for other children such as social interaction, access to infrastructure, going to school, completing one’s work, etc. which might seem like magnifying the problem at hand along with facing the regular share of issues for other children.

Taking the case of the education sector, for many years now, it has ignored the idea of integrating the Children with Disabilities in regular schools in its implementation. This stems from the idea of how disability is generally seen as a deviance from normality resulting in discrimination and disadvantage.

Although many countries have laws and certain standards for ensuring greater access to the CWD in terms of education, there are still gaps observed. Take the case of India, the Samagara Shiksha Abhiyan by the government of India envisions inclusive education as part of the education policy. Under the scheme, components such as increasing not only enrolment for CWD in mainstream schools but also removal of barriers for them, access to aids, teacher training, and home-based school education are all part of it. Implementation of the scheme through coordination between the stakeholders is still a challenge (UNESCO, 2019). There is a need to thus highlight the key dimensions involved in education of CWD to further understand how some of them are able to be resilient. This will provide a direction to the policymakers, practitioners, and others on the best ways to further increase access to and participation of CWD in regular schools.

1.2 The Concept of Inclusive Education

There are many inequalities in the educational opportunities based on region, sex, caste, household income, disability, ethnicity, etc. Despite many efforts to reform the system, different kinds of inequality still persist in our educational system. As Coleman (1966) points out, that genuine or perfect equality requires that the schools produce equal results. But, the schools too like other institutions are a reflection of what goes on in the society.

Today, there is a thrust towards ‘inclusion’ in terms of including all which lies at the heart of the social and educational policy. According to Mittler (2000), “inclusion in the field of education involves a process of reform and restructuring of the school as a whole with the aim of ensuring that all pupils can have access to the whole range of educational and social opportunities offered by the school”. The simple idea here is that inclusion should allow access to and allow participation to all children enrolled in the range of activities which the school conducts to benefit all the children – from different races, gender, those with disabilities, ethnic or linguistic minorities, etc. who are generally at the risk of exclusion.

The concept of ‘Inclusive education’ in came up in the late 1980s. It was to be an alternative to special education and thus expanded the responsibilities of school systems to increase access, participation, and opportunities to learn for those who were generally excluded from regular education (Kozleski & Yu, 2016). Thus, inclusive education seems to bridge the gap rising due to inequality in education among children due to their social, economic, biological, or cultural factors.

In post-Independent India, a comprehensive review of the entire educational system and recommendation of a common school system of public education was proposed by the Kothari Commission (1964-66) where the goal of the common school system was to be open to all children irrespective of their differences in terms of race, caste, creed, social status, etc. But, it was the National Policy on Education (NPE, 1968) that focussed on efforts in the direction of the fulfillment of the Directive Principles of State Policy under Article 45 of the Constitution where education for the children with disabilities was envisioned by expanding facilities for children with disabilities both physical and mental as well as integrating them into the regular school system. The concept of Inclusive Education has been given importance in the National Curriculum Framework, 2005, and fairly translates into the idea that it should embrace all (Julka, 2005). The author also says that although there is no particular operational definition in India of inclusive education, there is a general loose idea which is – “Inclusive education means all learners, young people- with or without disabilities being able to learn together in regular pre-school provisions, schools and community educational settings with appropriate network of support services”. This definition is one step ahead of integrated education wherein greater focus is on accommodating all the children regardless of their physical, intellectual, social, emotional, linguistic, or other conditions. ReferencesColeman, J. S. (1966). Equality of Educational Opportunity. Washington D.C.: U S Government Printing Office.

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Evaluating Resilience among Differently-abled Children: A Study of Children with Disabilities in Kerala

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