The Fundamental Characteristics of Self-Contained Special Class

The special class in the regular elementary and junior high school is one of the major educational placement for the pupils with disabilities in Japan. But special classes have various difficulties in providing an appropriate education for pupils with disabilities. One of the difficulties is the severization and diversification of the impairments and disabilities of the pupils, and the other is the reduction of the class size. The Teacher education and in-service education for special class teachers are also problematic. Adding to these conditions, the discussions on Special Education Reform calling for more integration and enlargement of special education make a diffusion of the image of special class education. In Japan, special classes in regular schools provide such various special educational services as follows, a) no pull-out special educational care in a regular classes, b) resource rooms providing part time special education, and c) self-contained special classes providing independent curricula for special pupils. This variedness of special class education makes the images and characteristics of special class education obscure. In this paper, we tried to clarify the fundamental characteristics of self-contained special class education by examining an educational practice m a typical self-contained special class for pupils with developmental disorders, the special classes of Attached Junior High School of Nara University of Education. We focused on a physical education practice, a fundamental subject in these classes. We examined a teaching-learning process in a lesson in which pupils learned rope skipping, and argued that in the physical education of this class, the teacher instructs the pupils to understand the body movements of themselves by language, gestures, modeling and other methods, and pupils'acquisition of body movements and skills are accompanied with understanding their own bodies. The teaching-learning process in these classes built up a pupils reliance on the teachers and themselves. Such characteristics of educational practice should be generalized in all self-contained special class education serving pupils with developmental disorders