Challenges and strategies for integrating preschool children with disabilities into public kindergartens in Inner Mongolia, China

This study looks into the integration of preschool children with disabilities into public kindergartens in Inner Mongolia in China. This is a region with vast territories but which has been shown to have an uneven spread in the adoption of inclusive education for children. The study adopted a qualitative approach, in which in-depth, semi-structured interviews were held with 22 stakeholders who were selected with the use of purposive sampling done across 12 areas in Inner Mongolia. The findings revealed that inclusive preschool education in Inner Mongolia is still in a transitional phase of being ‘policy-driven but practice-lagging'. The study found that there were significant disparities in the spread of resources and capacity between the urban and rural areas and this is evident in four major aspects of development which were investigated by this study. These are: admission of children with disabilities, teacher preparation and support, physical environment accessibility, and parental attitudes and engagement. Based on these insights, the study proposes a set of contextually tailored strategies to overcome these difficulties, and these include; strengthening policy implementation and inter-departmental coordination, establishing collaborative mechanisms between general and special education systems, cultivating a multidisciplinary inclusive teacher workforce, and enhancing multi-sector support from families, communities, and social organisations. These recommendations aim to effectively advance the inclusion of 3–6-year-old children with disabilities in public kindergartens in Inner Mongolia and similar regions in China.