Analysis of mapping knowledge domains of special education research: a comparison of CSSCI and SSCI indexes

Abstract:

Special education is a natural yardstick to measure a country’s educational level and the whole civilization. China has a massive special education undertaking that develops rapidly and forms a unique system. This study used bibliometric methods to conduct a macroscopic comparative analysis of Chinese and global literature, discuss the existing problems of China’s special education, and put forward relevant recommendations accordingly. The CiteSpace V visual analysis software was used to draw the scientific knowledge map of the Chinese local database CSSCI and the global database SSCI, and the results of the map were discussed. Research conclusions: Firstly, China’s research institutions lack a macro-level cooperation network. Second, there are differences in the focus of special education objects between China and the world. This difference is mainly caused by the definition of special education objects, which may be influenced by the formulation of educational concepts and policies. Thirdly, in the reference co-citation analysis, the focus of Chinese research is narrow and generally focuses on special education teachers. This article provides implications for solving special education problems in China, and its research method provides a reference for future related research for other countries.

Introduction

Receiving an education is a fundamental human right, including the right to education and equal access to education. The United Nations Convention had stipulated the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, which came into effect in 2008, that the contracting parties shall ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy the right to education without discrimination and based on equal opportunities. Special education was relatively late started in China. After the founding of New China in 1949, the Administrative Commission of the Central People’s Government issued the Decisions on School Reform, which explicitly stipulated that special schools for the deaf, the dumb, the blind should be set up. In 1994, the Chinese Education Committee issued the Trial Measures for Carrying out the Work of Disabled Children and Adolescents Learning in Regular Classes, starting the work of children with disabilities learning in regular classes. Over just a few decades, China has made great achievements in the popularization of special education. Currently, the total number of disabled persons in China is more than 85 million, accounting for about 6.3% of China’s total population (Long et al. 2018). Up to the end of 2016, more than 90% of children and adolescents with visual, hearing, and intellectual disabilities have enrolled in compulsory education (Li 2019b). According to the Phase II Planning of Promoting Special Education issued by the Ministry of Education of the People’s Republic of China, the enrollment rate of disabled children enrolling in compulsory education is expected to reach 95% in 2020. With the largest educated population in the world, China has developed special education on a large scale and at a high rate of speed, forming a unique system.

However, there are still many development challenges behind the large-scale popularization of special education in China. For example, the development of special education is extremely unbalanced in different regions (Li 2014). In ethnic minority areas and cold highland areas, special education develops very slowly, and there is a lack of faculties due to various factors, such as the natural and cultural environment and the economic development level (Li et al. 2019). Secondly, inclusive education is of low quality. Learning in regular classes and inclusive education only stays in the fusion of physical space, and the education quality needs to be improved. Besides, there is a shortage of faculties. Although there is a certain scale of special education teachers, the role of special education teachers is ambiguous, and they are less professional and practical (Zhao and Zhang 2019).

Meanwhile, in China, the disabled face great discrimination in their access to education. Only 55% of the disabled children in China receive education in an ordinary school (Deng and Zhao 2019). Teachers in ordinary schools have not trained in special education. Besides, there are normally so many students in a classroom that the teacher can hardly meet the needs of children with disabilities (Worrell and Taber 2009, Kritzer 2014). In terms of higher education for the disabled, there is a lack of infrastructure and graduate education (Ma and Sun 2012). In the aspect of employment, discrimination usually exists in institutions. Even the actual employment rate of college students who have received higher education is low; moreover, their treatment is poor. The employment rate of disabled college students in various provinces and cities is only 60%, which is far less than that of sound college students (Ma and Sun 2012).

Discrimination against the disabled is from policies, schools, families, and society, and it has become an obstacle to protecting the legal rights and interests of the disabled. In a word, although great achievements have been made in China, the development level of special education does not match its status as a global power and is significantly behind developed countries.

From a global perspective, the United States plays a leading role in developing special education across the world, and it owns a mature special education system. This is reflected in its sound legislation, rigorous evaluation procedures, professional teaching staff, etc. (Hu 2005). The United States owns a perfect inclusive education system, in which Individualized Educational Plans (IEPs) have been well-practiced, and the individualized needs of disabled students can be met (Sacks and Halder 2017). Special education in other countries has different advantages, which can provide a certain reference for China. For example, the UK owns a three-level service system to support special education needs, which covers the School Action (SA), School Action Plus (SA+), and Special Educational Needs Statement (SEN Statement) (Hou and Liu 2018). The well-structured system can strengthen and provide different levels of educational support for students with special needs. Furthermore, Australia integrates an inclusive education curriculum into the national curriculum system to carry out overall planning and construction (Li 2019a). The measure cannot only promote the participation of all students and meet diverse needs, but it can also help improve the quality of education the disabled receive.

Bibliometric analysis is a scientific method that identifies core entities, development trends, and research focuses on specific research domains. Selecting representative local databases and using this method for analysis can excavate the research status of the local special education field and reflect the policy development level of local special education. In this study, Chinese Social Sciences Citation Index (CSSCI) and Social Sciences Citation Index (SSCI) databases were selected as the research objects, which respectively cover the most representative and authoritative journal papers in the field of Chinese and international special education. The comparative analysis of this literature helps reveal the shortcomings of China’s special education system and policies, and draw on the advantages of other countries to improve the quality of China’s special education development.

In this research, we applied bibliometric methods to visual analysis the articles from a local database in China and a global database by the software CiteSpace V, focusing on articles published over the last ten years. This research analyzed and compared the characteristics, research frontiers, and developing special education trends in China and other countries. Based on the research results, the author summarized the problems in special education in China, analyzed its meaning, and what China can learn from other countries. Finally, from a multidisciplinary perspective, the research prospect of special education in China was deepened. It is hoped that this research method based on the database can provide a reference for scholars in other countries.

Method

Research methods

Scientometrics is a quantitative method of knowledge to find temporal and structural changes in a specific subject, as well as to assess trends or future research (Kumarsuresh and Gargk 1998). Knowledge visualization is a dual concept formed by the intersection of ‘research frontiers’ and ‘knowledge bases’, which focuses on time and knowledge, where knowledge graphs are the manifestations of it (Hou and Hu 2013). Mapping knowledge domains is a kind of graph that takes the scientific knowledge as the object and displays the development process and structural relationship of scientific knowledge in the visual form (Olawumi and Chan 2018).

At present, this method has been widely used in various fields. Research in some fields analyzes different databases by generating knowledge graphs to analyze the differences in basic knowledge between different regions (Duan et al. 2020, Wang and Lu 2020, Zhang et al. 2020), but it still lacks in the field of special education. Therefore, this study adopted a bibliometric analysis method to study the field of special education, and draws a ‘scientific knowledge map’, and uses visualization methods to present the knowledge structure, research rules, and document distribution of this large-scale research of special education.

Measures

Citespace software is the combination of scientometrics and mapping knowledge domains, using scientific and statistical methods to describe the frontier and developing trends of a specific subject, which developed and provided by Dr. Chen Chaomei in Java programming language (Chen 2006). In this study, the CiteSpace software was used for analyzing the data. The basic principle of Citespace is analyzing and measuring the units (countries, keywords, authors, etc.) in the database. Citespace is essentially an information visualization technique of the macro knowledge measurement and has its unique measurement indicator and implication.

Different categories of visual maps have different meanings. The node size of the Country/Institution cooperation map represents the publication volume of the country/institution, and the connection between the nodes reflects the strength of the cooperation relationship. In the Analysis of Co-occurrence Keywords, the node size reflects the frequency of occurrence of keywords, and the connection between two nodes reflects the connection between two nodes. The stronger the connection is, the higher frequency of two nodes Co-occurrence, and the shorter the distance between the two nodes in the map. In the Reference co-citation analysis, each node represents one piece of literature. The larger size of nodes means more times of its citations, while the link line between two nodes refers to the coupling strength of two papers. In summary, nodes and lines are the two basic elements of a visual map.

In Citespace, the value of betweenness centrality indicates the importance of a node, where larger betweenness centrality value states for a stronger influence of a node on other nodes, showing that the node is more important. The betweenness centrality algorithm was developed by Freeman in 1977 (Freeman 1977). The formula for calculating betweenness centrality is as follows:

$${\mathrm{ }BC}_i=\sum _{s\ne i\ne t}\frac{n_{st}^i}{g_{st}}$$ (1)

where i, s, t represent three nodes respectively, $g_{st}$ represents the number of shortest paths from node s to node t, and $n_{st}^i$ represents the number of shortest paths from node s to node t through node i.

The link between two nodes represents the strength of the connection between the two nodes. Citespace calculates the strength of the connection between the two nodes with algorithm cosine, and the calculation formula is as follows:

$$\mathrm{Cosine}\left(c_{ij},s_i,s_j\right)=\frac{c_{ij}}{\sqrt{s_i{s}_j}}$$ (2)

where $c_{ij}$ is the frequency of co-occurrences of i and j, and $s_i$ is the frequency of occurrence of i, while $s_j$ the frequency of occurrence of j (Li and Chen 2016).

Where the graph generated is dense, the readability of it could be improved by retaining more important connections. The pruning method used in this study is the minimum spanning tree method, according to which the original graph G can be constructed into a minimum spanning tree with the sum of its vertices and weights.

We can perform Burst Phrases Analysis on the visual map, where the algorithm proposed by Kleinberg in 2002 is used for Burst Phrases Analysis (Chen et al. 2014b), which suggests that more sudden nodes in a cluster mean it is more likely to represent the emerging trend of research in this field.

Data-collection and sample

The study utilized SSCI database of the Web of Science (WoS) Core Collection, which is the central research database for studies in the social sciences, contains thousands of the most important social science journals in the world and the content covers all fields of social science. The SSCI database was used as the data source for the foreign-language literature. The CSSCI database of the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) was used as the data source for Chinese-language literature, which contains the most advanced and cutting-edge research in social sciences in China. These two databases contain all the authoritative literature, essentially in English and Chinese.

The search keyword was ‘special education’. In Chinese, special education is generally defined as: ‘Using general or specially designed courses, textbooks, teaching methods, teaching organization forms and teaching equipment, education for children with special needs aimed at achieving general and special training goals’ (Wang 2011). ‘Special education’ in English generally defined as ‘Education of the individual who markedly deviates intellectually, physically, socially, or emotionally from those considered to be normal, thus requiring special instruction’ (MeSH 1968). On the whole, both definitions of special education in Chinese and English are quite similar, referring to additional education services provided for children with special needs. In China, special education mainly serves children with visual, auditory, verbal, physical disabilities, and intellectual disorders as a result of the legal definition of ‘disability’. While in Western countries, special education not only focuses on children with physical disabilities, but also covers children with learning disorder, communication disorder, emotional and behavioral disorder, developmental disabilities and other persistent disabilities. Although varied definitions of ‘disability’ by laws in different countries may lead to different meanings of special education, it is still representative to retrieve information with ‘special education’ as subject words. This is principal because it covers various education practices for the disabled, including learning in regular class, inclusive education and individualized educational plan. Although ‘special education’ is not a widely applied term, it is endowed with similar meanings in Chinese and English, which shows language compatibility in retrieval. The author reckons that ‘special education’ can be used to retrieve literature relevant to the education of the disabled.

In the SSCI database, ‘special education’ was the search keyword, and select the literature from 2010 to 2019, chose ‘Article’ as the document type. 7,305 studies were obtained. Export all the studies as ‘Other File Formats’, The Record Content ‘full record and cites reference’. Each piece of selected data was Exported as ‘Other File Formats’.

CSSCI was used to search for Chinese studies. After searching for studies with ‘special education’ as the subject with the time from 2010 to 2019, chose ‘Article’ as document type, 1312 studies were found. Export all the studies as ‘Refworks’ format.

The above literature was checked after the retrieval, irrelevant literature and repeated literature were eliminated. Irrelevant literature is non-academic articles in journals and magazines of SSCI and CSSCI, including calls for papers, instructions for authors, notice of special education seminars, notice of editorial review fees and page charges, introduction to normal universities, advertisements for special education schools, and appreciation of paintings. Finally, 8461 resulting references (7301 literature in the SSCI database and 1160 literature in the CSSCI database) were used as the dataset for further analysis.

Data analysis

The literature of Refworks format derived from the CSSCI database needs to be converted into the data format that can be identified by CiteSpace5.5.R2 with the built-in data format conversion tool of CiteSpace5.5.R2, and then the literature of converted format can be imported into CiteSpace5.5.R2 for further analysis.

The Time Slicing was set from 2010 to 2019 and set each year as a per slice. The Term Source were from Title, Abstract, Author Keywords and Keywords Plus. To make the visual map clear and readable, the minimum spanning tree (MST) was chosen to pruning the original visual map. Other parameters are default.

Results

Analysis of literature from SSCI

Overview of special education studies from SSCI

A total of 7301 special education-related papers were retrieved for analysis. Research on special education worldwide has risen steadily over the last ten years (Figure 1). The Annual publications increased consistently from 524 to 1044 in the last decade.

Figure 1.

Annual output of special education researches from SSCI.

Analysis of countries and institutions from SSCI

To determine the contribution of each country and its institutions to special education research, publication frequency and centrality were examined based on the authors’ countries and institutions, using a visualized collaboration network generated by CiteSpace. The results showed that 229 institutions from 70 countries carried out special education studies from 2010 to 2019. Furthermore, a close cooperative relationship was observed between countries and organizations form the complex connections between nodes. Table 1 lists the top ten countries and institutions contributing to the field of special education.

Table 1.

Top 10 countries and organizations participating in special education studies.

Rank	Country/region	Count	Centrality
1	USA	3502	0.29
2	England	507	0.15
3	Australia	320	0.09
4	Netherlands	302	0.12
5	Peoples Republic of China	275	0.04
6	Canada	270	0.07
7	Germany	219	0.12
8	Spain	201	0.03
9	Sweden	197	0.08
10	Turkey	177	0.01
Rank	Organization	Count	Centrality
1	University of North Carolina	122	0.06
2	University of Kansas	118	0.08
3	University of Illinois	116	0.03
4	University of Minnesota	115	0.03
5	Vanderbilt University	113	0.09
6	University of Florida	95	0.09
7	University of Wisconsin	93	0.06
8	University of Missouri	82	0.00
9	University of Texas at Austin	80	0.01
10	University of Connecticut	71	0.00

As shown in Figure 2. The majority of the top 10 countries are in Europe (5), and a few countries from North America, Asia, and Australia. The largest contributor to research in this area is the United States, with 3502 publications and a high centrality (0.29), indicating that its research results are widely referenced by scholars worldwide. Figure 3 illustrates the state of cooperation among national research institutions in the SSCI database.

Figure 2.

The distribution of countries participating in special education studies.

Figure 3.

The distribution of institutions participating in special education studies from SSCI.

Analysis of co-occurrence keywords

Keywords are a high summary of an article’s content, reflecting the research hotspots and topics in a certain field. In this study, 87 nodes (N = 87) and 225 connection (E = 225) were obtained. The top 20 keywords in special education studies are presented in Table 2, which will be used for further analysis.

Table 2.

Top 20 key words in the field of special education research from SSCI.

Rank	Keyword	Frequency	Centrality	Rank	Keyword	Frequency	Centrality
1	Special education	2307	0.99	11	Impact	305	0.00
2	Children	1181	1.19	12	Attitude	304	0.05
3	Student	1007	0.79	13	Health	296	0.00
4	Disability	833	0.14	14	Learning disability	277	0.20
5	Inclusive education	703	0.62	15	Achievement	272	0.34
6	Intervention	538	0.14	16	Knowledge	268	0.09
7	School	510	0.05	17	Risk	263	0.00
8	Adolescent	425	0.05	18	Prevalent	257	0.40
9	Teacher	384	0.22	19	Perception	252	0.18
10	Behavior	310	0.14	20	Autism	251	1.21

According to Table 2 and Figure 4, the following can be concluded. (1) Children, Adolescents, learning disability, Autism ranks the 2nd, 8th, 14th, 20thin the frequency respectively, indicating that children and adolescents are the age group that most researchers focus on. Furthermore, children with learning disability or autistic the hotspots of special education. (2) Inclusive education, School, Teacher, Knowledge ranks the 5th, 7th, 9th, 16th in the frequency respectively. School is one of the important places for special education. The rise of inclusive education leads to the hot topic of how to design courses and organize classes.

Figure 4.

Keyword co-occurrence visualization network in the field of special education from SSCI.

Analysis of the burst phrases

The strong burst phrases indicated that these keywords attract the scientific community’s attention at a certain time. Therefore, citation burst is one of the common methods to assess a particular field’s hot spots and frontiers in one period (Chen 2006). Figure 5 presents the top 23 keywords with the strongest citation. Two keywords with high burst strength were selected for further analysis: ‘early intervention’, ‘technology’.

Figure 5.

The citation burst of keywords in special education studies from SSCI.

‘Early intervention’ service system is composed of families, educational institutions, medical departments, social welfare, etc. Early intervention can help children with disabilities improve cognitive, adaptive, and social functioning (Shi et al. 2013). Germany’s Book Nine of the Social Code on the rehabilitation and participation of people with disabilities (2001) pointed out that early medical screening is essential for early intervention and the fullest possible resolution of disability (van Kessel et al. 2019). The early intervention program of Germany includes relevant education and treatment for children, and provides counseling services for parents to help them recognize their defects and provide relevant guidance for the children. As early as in the 19th century, the Netherlands started to provide early intervention for children with the most common form of playing games. Private organizations carried out most games, and the government subsidizes more than 80% of them. A trinity intervention model supported by medicine, education and society has basically formed in the Netherlands (Zhao and Zhang 2012).

‘Technology’ is a burst keyword emerged in 2015. Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) aims to ensure free appropriate public education for disabilities, which mandates student’s access to devices and technology as part of the individual education program (Nepo 2017). Computer-assisted technology is the most common use of learning technology in special education which has attracted the attention of special education workers (Liu et al. 2013). Correspondingly, the development of software is also widely discussed (Soykan and Özdamlı 2017). Furthermore, high-tech equipment was also used in special education teachers’ professional training. Virtual technology such as digital case studies, supervision via videoconferencing, audio-cued coaching, and participation in virtual reality activities enhance the learning opportunities for special education teachers (Billingsley and Scheuermann 2014).

Reference co citation analysis

Reference co-citation analysis is helpful to identify and comprehend the knowledge base and the most influential literature in a given field (Chen et al. 2014a). High co-citation frequencies can characterize the knowledge base and great literature. Co-citation frequencies represent the citation times of references that were co-cited by two pieces of literature in SSCI. To determine the knowledge base and evolution of special education research, we conducted a co-citation analysis of SSCI literature related to special education. Figure 6 and Table 3 reveal the top 10 pieces of advanced literature of high co-citation frequencies. In this section, the studies are analyzed in terms of research methods, research content, and research scope.

Figure 6.

Co-citation network of reference co citation in the field of special education from SSCI.

Table 3.

Top 10 co-cited references of special education studies from SSCI.¹

Rank	Co-citation literature	Frequency of citation
1	Horner (2005)	60
2	Cook (2013)	48
3	Skiba (2008)	48
4	Odom (2005)	47
5	Rose (2011)	42
6	de Boer (2011)	39
7	Morgan (2015)	36
8	Hibel (2010)	35
9	Sullivan (2013)	32
10	Kratochwill (2010)	31

¹ Note. Guidelines are omitted from this table of co-cited references.

For research methods, the literature of high co-citation frequencies mainly uses the literature analysis method to summarize the methodology of special education research and provide guidance or point out the factors affecting special education practice. For instance, Odom et al. (2005) summarized the scientific methods and evidence-based practice of special education research through a systematic review.

For research content, the literature of high co-citation frequencies focuses on research methods and quality indicators in the area of special education, as well as on the imbalance of different students in special education, paying attention to race, socioeconomic status and other factors. For example, Horner et al. (2005) presented the defining features of single-subject research and reviewed the contribution of single-subject research to special education. Skiba et al. (2008) provided a report on the history, measurement, status, and factors contributing to the disproportionate representation of special education.

For the research scope, the literature of high co-citation frequencies has a wide scope and comprehensive coverage. They concern not only the methodology of special education research but also the factors affecting children’s access to special education, such as teachers’ attitudes and school bullying.

Analysis of literature from CSSCI

Overview of special education studies from CSSCI

A total of 1160 special education-related papers were retrieved for analysis. Figure 7 displays an overview of the quantity of literature during 2010–2019. Research on special education in China had no visible change during the past decade.

Figure 7.

Annual output of special education researches from CSSCI.

Analysis of institutions from CSSCI

As shown in Figure 8. 102 institutions carried out studies on special education from 2010 to 2019. 80 links between the notes were detected. The top 10 countries and institutions contributing to the field of special education are list in Table 4. Most Chinese special education research institutions form a close cooperation network centred on the Faculty Of Education Beijing Normal University, with aggregation and scaling effects.

Figure 8.

The distribution of institutions participating in special education studies from CSSCI.

Table 4.

Top 10 institutions participating in special education studies from CSSCI.

Rank	Institutions	Count	Centrality
1	Faculty Of Education, Beijing Normal University	127	0.26
	The Department of Special Education, Beijing Normal University		0.02
2	Nanjing Normal University Of Special Education	58	0.06
3	Central China Normal University	49	0.04
4	Faculty Of Education, East China Normal University	35	0.03
	The Department of Special Education, East China Normal University		0.02
5	Special Education College of Bejjing Union University	27	0.02
6	School of Education Shaanxi Normal University	18	0.00
7	Faculty of Education, Southwest University	18	0.02
8	National Institute of Education Sciences	18	0.03
9	School of Education and Psychology, University Of Jinan	10	0.01
10	The Elementary Education College Of Xinjiang Normal University	9	0.09

Analysis of co-occurrence keywords

As shown in Figure 9, 195 nodes (N = 195) and 230 connections (E = 230) were obtained. The top 20 keywords in special education studies are presented in Table 5, which will be used for further analysis.

Figure 9.

Keyword co-occurrence visualization network in the field of special education from CSSCI.

Table 5.

Top 20 key words in the field of special education research from CSSCI.

Rank	Keyword	Frequency	Centrality	Rank	Keyword	Frequency	Centrality
1	Special education	215	0.17	11	Education equity	30	0.35
2	Inclusion	87	0.04	12	Revelation	22	0.29
3	The United States	65	0.44	13	British	21	0.11
4	Inclusive education	63	0.09	14	Combination of medicine and education	20	0.08
5	Learning in regular classes	62	0.45	15	Teachers	18	0.02
6	Special education teacher	60	0.39	16	Social support	16	0.10
7	Disabled children	40	0.13	17	Special education schools	10	0.29
8	Special education school	34	0.47	18	Autism	11	0.04
9	Disabled	34	0.22	19	Status	10	0.05
10	Exceptional child	33	0.23	20	Occupational burnout	30	0.35

According to Table 5 and Figure 9, the following can be concluded. (1) Inclusive education, Learning in regular classes, Combination of medicine and education ranks the 4th, 5th, 15th in the frequency. Inclusive education is the main form of special education for children with intellectual disabilities at the present stage in China. Learning in regular classes requires children with disabilities to attend the same age-appropriate classes as their peers without disabilities in local schools (Bose and Heymann 2020). A combination of medicine and education refers to combining rehabilitation services and education systems, which is an important measure to improve special education quality in China. (2) Teacher, Social support, and Occupational burnout ranks the 16th, 17th, 20th in the frequency, indicates the constant attention from researchers on the state of special education teachers.

Analysis of the burst phrases

Figure 10 presents the top 15 keywords with the strongest citation. Four keywords with high burst strength were chosen for further analysis: ‘Right to education’, ‘Combination of medicine and education’, ‘teacher’, and ‘Higher education for the disabled’.

Figure 10.

The citation burst of keywords in special education studies from CSSCI.

‘Right to education’ is a fundamental right of citizens. However, disabled children often are discriminated against in General schools, and there are few special education schools in China. Therefore, the right to education of disabled children is not well protected (Peng and Deng 2011). How to establish corresponding laws and regulations and enhance law enforcement of educational administrative bureaus were widely discussed (Zhang 2012).

‘Combination of medicine and education’ refers to the integration of health and education. Special education is a cross-discipline and comprehensive subject (Zhang 2014). However, rehabilitation services and special education are divided into two different systems in China. Rehabilitation treatment services are mainly undertaken by hospitals, while special education is mainly provided by educational institutions (Zhang 2013). As the implementation of the policy of ‘Combination of medicine and education’ in 2009, the feasibility and the specific measures of it has been widely discussed (Deng and Lu 2012). Under the background of ‘Combination of medicine and education’, the topic about the reinforcement of teaching faculty and the curriculum design became a hotspot in special education. Some researchers suggested cultivating ‘double-qualified’ teachers who can integrate basic teaching with rehabilitation training skill (Sun and Lu 2012).

‘Higher education for the disabled’ was brushed in 2017. The State Council passed ‘The Regulations On The Education For The Disabled’. It established the principle of ‘Integration Education’ in 2017 to perfect the exam system of reasonable facilities for the disabled and provide the disabled with a guarantee for higher education. This measure indicated that the rights to education of the disabled in China have further developed.

Reference co citation analysis

Figure 11 and Table 6 shows the top 10 pieces of advanced literature of high co-citation frequencies in CSSCI. This section analyzes the research in terms of research methods, research content, and research scope.

Figure 11.

Co-occurrence network of reference co-citation in the field of special education from CSSCI.

Table 6.

Top 10 co-cited references of special education studies from CSSCI.

Rank	Co-citation literature	Frequency of citation
1	Wang Yan (2011)	11
2	Wang Lingfeng (2010)	10
3	Feng Jianxin (2011)	9
4	Wang Zhu (2006)	8
5	Zhao Xiaohong (2012)	7
6	Cai Jiang (2014)	5
7	Wang Haiping (2006)	5
8	Chen Xiaoyin (2008)	5
9	Zhao Xiaohong (2013)	4
10	Peng Xiaguang (2010)	4

For research methods, the literature of high co-citation frequencies mainly uses the questionnaire survey method to analyze special education development status in a specific area through sampling survey, finding out the problems, and putting forward corresponding suggestions. Wang et al. (2011), Wang (2010), Chai and Wang (2014) all took the special education teachers in different regions as samples, analyzed the questionnaire results, discussed the current situation of the special teachers, such as the size, professional quality, and working status.

For research content, most of the literature of high co-citation frequencies focuses on special education teachers’ current situation, such as occupational stress and response, occupational identity and satisfaction, professional training, and development. A few articles deal with the evolution of special education models in China. Wang et al. (2012) sorted out the current situation of teachers in special education through a nationwide sampling questionnaire survey and interview. The result found the serious imbalance of teachers’ sex ratio, low professional level, imperfect post-job training, and relevant countermeasures.

For the research scope, most of the literature of high co-citation frequencies focuses on special education teachers, discussing the current situation and professional training of special teachers. Their research object is relatively concentrated and the scope is narrow. Among the top 10 pieces of literature of high co-citation frequencies, 7 are special education teachers’ research.

Discussion

Comparative of the literature from CSSCI and SSCI

Through the analysis of the SSCI database, we found that China ranked fifth in the number of published papers. This shows that Chinese researchers pay close attention to special education. Through the analysis of institutions, it was found that an orderly cooperation framework has been formed among the various institutions around the world; institutions are connected and cooperate closely, and the scale and influence of each research institution are close. However, by analyzing the local database in China, it was found that China lacks a macro cooperation framework; cooperation works lack depth, and there are agglomerations and monopolies, indicating studies on special education in China are limited to a small number of institutions, and a broad academic cooperation network has not yet been formed. Besides, from the map, it can be observed that foreign research institutions are generally comprehensive universities, while the counterpart research institutions in China are mostly normal colleges and education colleges. Since special education involves knowledge in many fields and pedagogy, it also includes areas including medicine and psychology. It can be inferred that, in China, the studies on special education are mainly biased towards pedagogy. Therefore, in China, the issues include the monopoly, the over narrow research coverage, and the lack of a certain number of large research institutions. These may be important factors hindering the development of special education in China.

Through Co-occurrence Keywords and Brust keyword analysis, it was found that inclusive education is a research hotspot at home and abroad, but the focuses of the studies in China are different from that of other countries. The incident keywords ‘curriculum’, ‘classroom’, ‘participation’ in the SSCI database were mainly proposed due to the policy of inclusive education. Most researchers have been discussing the current curriculum and the status quo of integrated education, as well as whether students with disabilities can truly integrate into the classroom of ordinary schools. Inclusive education involves integrating of three aspects, including physical space, society, and teaching (Zhao 2018). The integration in terms of teaching is the highest objective of integrated education. Although in the Trial Measures on Carrying out the Work of Learning in Regular Classes for Disabled Children and Adolescents issued by the State Education Commission in 1994, it is clearly stated that carrying out regular class education for disabled children and adolescents is a major form of schooling to develop and popularize compulsory education for disabled children and adolescents in China (Deng and Jing 2013), the literature shows that the current integrated education in China still stays at the physical space integration level (Wang et al. 2015).

Through the comparison of Chinese and global databases, there are also differences in the research objects of special education between China and foreign countries. In the SSCI database, the keyword ‘learning disability’ is a major core of inclusive education research. A considerable number of keywords are from researches on learning disabilities. However, there are no relevant topics that attract widespread attention in China. The reason may be the difference in the definition of children with special needs in different countries. Currently, learning disabilities have been recognized by many countries as part of ‘special education’, and studies show that children with learning disabilities account for the highest proportion among all children receiving special education. Many countries have actively adopted relevant measures for children with learning disabilities. In the United States, children with special needs are helped in adapting to ordinary classes by setting up resource classrooms, and according to the characteristics of the disabled students, the educational environment and curriculum needs, and the results of education evaluation, the disabled students are arranged in different levels (Fletcher and Vaughn 2009). However, in China, children with learning disabilities are not considered as objects of special education (Worrell and Taber 2009); instead, it is believed that the recipients of special education are mainly those who are visually impaired, hearing impaired, or mentally retarded, and such belief has its origin in the traditional medical concept of disability. In China, students with learning disabilities are ignored by Chinese educators and researchers. In China, there is not only a lack of definitions for students with learning difficulties, but also a lack of uniform standards for the evaluation indicators used, and the focuses of related research are quite scattered. It is estimated that more than 30 million students in China are affected by learning difficulties (Meng et al. 2016). In China, students who suffer from learning difficulties are generally regarded as students with poor grades underachievement, and they are easily discriminated against and marginalized during teaching.

The concept of special education may affect the division of special education groups and the formulation of related policies. The word ‘needs’ appearing in the incident keywords is derived from the special education concept of ‘special educational needs’. This concept was first proposed in the Warnock Report issued by the Ministry of Education of the United Kingdom in 1978. In the Report, the term ‘handicapped children’ is replaced by ‘children with special educational needs’, which breaks through the traditional vision threshold of the characteristics of disability, demonstrates the treatment of the needs of individuals with disabilities from the perspective of education, and expands the horizon of the concept of ‘special education’ based on the common nature of human being. Special educational needs include special needs for educational arrangements caused by physical, psychological defects or emotional or behavioural disorders, etc., and the special needs of groups with abnormal intelligence or learning difficulties in a certain period. Many other countries quickly adopted this concept. Schools in Swedish set up working groups made up of staff, psychologists and nurses, which can provide extra support to students with special needs, helping them adapt to inclusive education (Wang et al. 2015). Early in 1980, Spain has built an external support team composed of experts in 11 domains, including pedagogy, psychology, medicine, sociology, social work. The team went to all regions of the whole country to solve integrative education’s challenges and difficulties and help disabled students blend with ordinary schools’ education (Harry 2005). China is short of special educators; meanwhile, China’s special education concept emphasizes disability’s medical definition, such as deaf-mute and physical disability. So China is inclined to train the teachers who master rehabilitation skills based on education (Sun and Lu 2012). The Burst phrases in CSSCI ‘combination of medical and education’ concept is proposed based on such a background.

However, behind the continuous improvement of China’s special education laws and regulations, there are also certain problems in the formulation and implementation of laws. The ‘Right to education’ appears in the burst phrases, which focuses on the legislation and enforcement of special education. For instance, there are many oaths in the clauses, which are difficult to implement; there are often ‘calls’ and ‘encouragements’ while actual problems are not stipulated, lacking coercive force. The newly revised Regulations on Education for Persons with Disabilities in 2017 improved the education system for the disabled, stipulating that based on guaranteeing compulsory education, education for the disabled extends to preschool education, vocational education, higher education, and lifelong education, thus supporting the education of all stages for the disabled (Wang 2017). However, in terms of whether it must be implemented and how to decide in the end, there is no further regulation, its explanation of how the clauses are implemented still not detailed enough for that it only makes regulations on a macro scale, lacking operability. Except for this regulation, the rest of the laws and regulations related to the education of persons with disabilities are nested in ordinary education laws and regulations, failing to form a unified legal system.

In addition to policy support, financial support is essential to improve the quality of higher education for persons with disabilities. For example, Australia provides financial assistance to students with disabilities through the Disability Support Program (DSP) (Chiwandire and Vincent 2019). By 2012, nearly 6,000 students had received educational assistance from Australian universities through the DSP. Canada set up funding programs such as the Canada Student Grant for Services and Equipment for Students with Permanent Disabilities (CSGSESPD) and the Canadian Province of Ontario Bursary Scheme for Students with Disabilities (BSWD) (Prince 2010). In Turkey, there are relevant organizations and foundations for each type of disability group to provide special education, funds, rehabilitation and vocational education for the relevant special groups, employment opportunities and social support for special students (Gao 2019). Although vocational schools and colleges are encouraged to enroll students with disabilities and offer related majors, specific measures in the plan, such as budget, investment and teacher construction, still focus on compulsory education (Wu 2020).

There are also differences between SSCI and CSSCI literature regarding high co-citation frequencies as a knowledge base and a representative of high-quality research. Such fact may reflect the differences in the frameworks and emphasis of special education research between China and other countries.

In terms of research methods, the literature analysis is mostly used in SSCI research, while the questionnaire survey is mostly used in CSSCI research. The significant differences in research methods between the literature of high co-citation frequencies of CSSCI and SSCI indicate that research in China focuses on the status quo, while research in other countries emphasizes rigorous scientific methods and standards. Most of these research methodologies are clarified in the form of systematic literature reviews. Such fact reflects China’s insufficient innovation ability in special education and lack of original empirical exploration of new technologies and new models. Chinese researchers tend to rely on practical issues and learn from advanced international practices to change the status quo. Most of the innovations in special education methods by researchers in other countries are based on mature experimental models to ensure the scientific credibility of new results. To some extent, the differences in research methods reflect that China lacks in-depth research and lags behind developed countries in fundamental research on special education (Li 2020b).

For research content, most of the literature of high co-citation frequencies in CSSCI focuses on special education teachers’ current situation. Wang (2010) analyzed special education teachers’ occupational stress and the main coping styles through a questionnaire survey. It concluded that the job burnout of special education teachers was relatively serious. For a long time, the construction of the talent reserve of special education teachers in China has been relatively weak, which is proved by the fact that few special education programs in universities and such programs are marginalized (Li 2020a). The talent reserve of special education teachers is relatively insufficient, and the in-service teachers face arduous tasks (Liu 2019). The in-service special education teachers receive insufficient training, which is often based on theory and unable to improve teachers’ practice abilities (Kritzer 2012). Society lacks understanding and recognition of the importance of special education. Special education teachers have poorer economic status and are more likely to suffer from professional discrimination than ordinary teachers (Hu and Zhang 2020). There are also significant differences in social status and income levels of special education teachers in urban and rural areas. Special education funds in rural areas are tight, which has caused a shortage of teachers in rural areas, and therefore the needs of a large number of disabled children cannot be met (Guo and Feng 2014). The various unfavourable factors and imminent practical needs for special teachers have made the group an important object for special education research in China. However, in reality, during the development of special education in China, the problem about the scale and level of the teachers has still been prominent.

However, the literature of high co-citation frequencies in SSCI mainly focuses on the research methods of special education and some concerns about the imbalance of different students in special education. Chinese researchers focus more on improving the overall education penetration rate and quality and focus less on the differences in different groups or ethnic groups. It reflects the high degree of unity in policy governance and the cultural tradition of collectivism in China. Besides, limited by the large class teaching model and the number of teachers, China’s special education does not focus on individual differences, lacks customized individual education programs (Sheng and Zhou 2020). In other words, the programs are a mere formality. On the contrary, taking into account various themes in special education.

In terms of the research scope, the literature of high co-citation frequencies in CSSCI pays more attention to special education teachers. The literature of high co-citation frequencies in SSCI focuses on both the methodology of special education research and the factors influencing children’s access to special education. Boer et al. (2011) examined the attitudes of general primary school teachers towards inclusive education through literature review. Rose et al. (2011) defined bullying perpetration and victimization, and analyzed researches on this topic comprehensively according to disability type, personal characteristics, and educational placement of disabled students. This may indicate that Chinese special education research values teachers as the main body of work and is committed to constructing high-quality teachers. Foreign research, on the other hand, takes into account various topics in special education. Generally speaking, the scope of research in special education in China is relatively narrow in that the researches focus on the educators’ point of view and seldom elaborate on student-centred topics.

Suggestions

Based on of these comparisons, we further discuss the future research direction in the field of special education.

1. Given that special education is a cross-discipline and comprehensive subject, research from diverse perspectives is an important direction of future research in this field, such as psychology, medicine, education perspectives. Furthermore, with the development of science and technology, using electronic devices to help disabled people receive special education will become an important future research direction in this field. However, most colleges and universities researching special education institutions in China are normal colleges, which is unconducive to the diversified development of special education; moreover, the research institutions are scattered. No systematic cooperation framework is established to create a clustering effect. Therefore, the cooperation between comprehensive and normal colleges should be strengthened to facilitate the diversification of special education research directions and establish a cooperation framework for various research institutions.

2. This study found that children with learning disabilities are a research hotspot in the international database and account for the highest proportion of disabled children. Pay attention to groups with learning disabilities, how teachers can respond to their needs, and what methods and measures can help them better integrate into the class to improve the quality of China’s inclusive education. However, China’s special education policy does not include such children in special education, which may hinder the development of China’s inclusive education. Therefore, we suggest that China expand the scope of inclusive education and the definition of children with special needs, and change the stereotype of evaluating disabled children only from the medical perspective. The definition should be adjusted based on the actual needs of children.

3. The study concludes that among the literature of high co-citation frequencies, literature in CSSCI paid more attention to the special education teachers, while SSCI paid more attention to research methods and children receiving special education. In China, the development of special education must solve the plight of special teachers. Given the heavy workload, low pay, and lack of training faced by special education teachers, our suggestions are as follows: First, widely offer special education programs in normal colleges and comprehensive universities and expand the number of students enrolled. Second, increase special education funds and increase financial investment to improve the treatment of special teachers. Besides, coordinating the allocation of resources between regions is particularly important and, it is necessary to strengthen counterpart assistance to special education in underdeveloped regions. Third, a standardized on-the-job training mechanism for special education teachers shall be established, and experts shall be organized to carry out regular training and supervision.

4. After discussion, it is found that China’s current laws and regulations on the education of disabled persons are unsystematic and poorly operable, and cannot well guarantee the right of disabled children to receive an education. At present, there is no ‘Special Education Law’ in China, and the existing laws are mainly departmental rules and administrative regulations. Therefore, the ‘Special Education Law’ should be formulated as soon as possible from the national level, and the special education laws should be integrated and reflected from the perspective of comprehensive development. Some vague provisions should be eliminated to refine the content of the provisions and enhance the enforceability of the law. Meanwhile, legislation should also determine a special supervision department to ensure the implementation of the law. We suggest special education academia cooperates with the legal academia to strengthen research on special education laws and policies to establish a sound legal system. On this basis, it is excellent to pay attention to evaluating the process and effects of law enforcement.

5. The combination of visual knowledge maps and bibliometrics provides a more scientific and reliable literature review method for scholars, helping researchers comprehensively and systematically understand the evolution of hotspots and development processes in a certain area. With the help of bibliometrics software, this study collected data from a local database a worldwide database for macro comparative analysis, including countries, institutions, keywords, high-citations literature in special education, reflect the research hotspots and development trends more intuitively and accurately during the last decade, providing ideas for future related research for other countries.

Geolocation information: Guangzhou, Guangdong province, China.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

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