STUDENT PERCEPTIONS OF DISABILITIESAT A SMALL JAPANESE UNIVERSITY
Tina Brown, Jeffrey Goncalves & Danielle Haugland
Kanda University of International Studies
ABSTRACT
For this study, we attempted to ascertain students’
perceptions of disabilities at our university. We were
specifically interested in what students considered to be adisability. One goal was to measure the students’ colloquial
understanding of disability in order to better realize theinformal social milieu that students with disabilities areentering as they attend our university. It is also hoped that
this survey will be used in the future with the same students,
so that we can measure what students learn about this topic
during their time at the university and how their perceptionsof those with disabilities evolve. Additionally, by learning what
students think, we look forward to creating tools andresources for better serving and understanding disabledstudents.
INTRODUCTION
The field of disability studies has a robust corpora to draw from. Many
researchers have studied teaching disabled foreign-language students(Abrams, 2008; Berberi et al., 2008; Kormos et al., 2018), student andfaculty perceptions of disabled people in various places (Kataoka et al.,
2004; Lipka et al., 2019; Mino et al., 2000; Murray et al., 2009; Tsu-Hsian
et al., 2020), and disability in Japan (Heyer, 2015; Mithout, 2016;
Stevens, 2013). There are some researchers who have specifically written
about university student perceptions of disability in Japan in English(Iwakuma et al., 2021; Mino et al., 2000), but those studies are often
quite small and some of them are old. Unfortunately, none of the three ofus speak Japanese sufficiently well to do quality research in Japanese,
which certainly narrows our understanding of the field. Even so, adding
more recent English-language research can only help other professionals
that are in similar situations to ours. It is with this background that wecame to our idea for research.
While the study of perceptions of disability is not new, we hope our study
will help expand and modernize the available data in English that exists inJapan. In addition, some researchers wonder what effect changing laws
and educational landscapes have had on the many stakeholders involved.
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Brown, T., Goncalves, J., & Haugland, D. (2023). Student perceptions of disabilities at asmall Japanese university. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 13-26. English Language Institute, KUIS.

Since we teach at university and our students attended public schools
when many changes were beginning, perhaps that has affected students’
perceptions of disability? Of course our one small study cannot answer
that question, but continuing research in this topic and comparing our
results to other similar studies could produce interesting results.
In this study, we are looking to get a baseline reading of what students
think about disabilities at our university to further assess and track theirbeliefs as they go through their education. We hope our research can beused to help teachers design ways to incorporate awareness and create
ways to better assist disabled students. We will cover the literaturearound perceptions of disability and how our work will add to current
research. We will explain the methods of our study and share notable
data. Finally, we will discuss where we would like to take our researchfrom here and how we hope to affect outcomes for our university, andways that it could be applied to other situations to improve theunderstanding of disabilities in education.
LITERATURE REVIEW
Background
Depending on which model you use, definitions of disability can vary.
According to Stevens (2013), “In short, the UN’s definition of disability is
any physical, medical and/or intellectual impairment that impedes anindividual’s ability to take responsibility for his or her daily functions” (p.
4). Japanese law defines disability as “a person with a disability (physical,
intellectual, mental (including developmental), and others) affecting thefunctions of the body or mind, and who are in a state of facing substantial
limitations in their continuous daily life or social life because of a disability
or a social barrier” (Cabinet Office, n.d., ch.1 sec. 2). An estimated 5.9%of people in Japan have some kind of disability (Disabled World, 2018).
The number of disabled postsecondary students was 1.05% in 2018 which
was a significant increase from the .44% in 2014. In 2019, greater than
1% of university students had some kind of disability that impacts
learning (Moriya et al., 2019). Compared to many other countries, 5.9%of the population is a very low number of disabled citizens. One reason forthat is the strict limitation of what is considered a disability (Heyer, 2015).
This could certainly affect how Japanese people understand disability incomparison to some other countries.
Since 2006, Japan has begun to push for integrating students withdisabilities into mainstream schools, rather than special education schools(Mithout, 2016). Learning disabilities were not recognized by law until
2007, meaning these students did not have any extra support until then
(Heyer, 2015). In 2013, Japan enacted The Act for Eliminating
Discrimination Against Persons with Disabilities, and ratified the14
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Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2014. The goal isto eliminate discrimination and to be certain that disabled people are notexcluded from receiving an education (Isogai, 2017). Recent surveys haverevealed that the number of disabled children in Japanese schools has
increased, and also that more and more students are attending regularschools, as opposed to the special education schools that were previously
more common (Isogai, 2017). Essentially, for the past 16 years theJapanese government has been trying to enact a more inclusive
educational environment and now recognizes learning disabilities.
Perceptions of Disability
A number of studies have measured teacher, faculty, and administrative
staff’s perceptions of disabilities. Lipka et al. (2019) explored faculty
attitudes and knowledge about disabilities at a university in Israel. Theirfocus was on learning disabilities and they found that while faculty havegenerally positive attitudes towards students with learning disabilities, thefaculty members had little knowledge about learning disabilities (Lipka etal., 2019). Kataoka et al. (2004) focused on elementary school principals'
and teachers’ perceptions of disabilities in Nara prefecture. Other studies(Murray et al., 2009; Tsu-Hsian et al., 2020) also focused on university
faculty members’ perceptions of disability. It can be seen that there are anumber of studies focusing on perceptions of disability, some a little old
and others more recent. While this information is valuable and helpful inunderstanding the landscape of disability studies, they are not directly
related to student perceptions of disabilities.
Perhaps the most relevant studies we came across were Mino et al.
(2000) and Iwakuma et al. (2021). Mino et al. (2000) conducted a study
in 1988 and 1993 aiming to measure medical students’ changing
perceptions of mental disability over time. Their results indicated general
success in changing student attitudes towards mental illness throughout
their time as medical students. While this study is somewhat dated bynow, the implication that education can change attitudes towards
disabilities remains relevant. A more recent study by Iwakuma et al.
(2021) described their results after measuring student perceptions of
disability both before and after a course about disabilities taken by
freshmen students. Their data also showed changes in student attitudes,
but they pointed out that this change in attitudes can diminish over time.
Their study is both new and relevant to the goals of this project. Our
study has no intervention intended to change student perceptions of
disability, but the opportunity to follow up over the respondents’ time at
the university exists and is an exciting point to consider in future
research. Our study gives us the first baseline reading of what ourstudents think about disabilities.

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Brown, T., Goncalves, J., & Haugland, D. (2023). Student perceptions of disabilities at asmall Japanese university. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 13-26. English Language Institute, KUIS.

METHODOLOGY
We considered three research questions for this mixed methods
investigation: 1) What do students at Kanda University of International
Studies (KUIS) think about disability? 2) Do they identify specific learning
difficulties such as Attention Deficit and Hyperactvity Disorder (ADHD) as
a disability? 3) How will their perceptions change over time? The third
research question cannot be addressed by this study alone, but we wereable to focus on the first and second questions. In order to answer thesequestions, we created a survey. Although we created the survey
ourselves, we understood the role our own biases and interpretations of
the research would play in influencing the creation of this survey.
KUIS is a foreign language university in Chiba, Japan where all students
study English as well as at least one other language. We created a 39
question, professionally translated bilingual survey with open ended,
checkbox, multiple choice, and 4-point Likert scale questions. Students
could answer in English or Japanese. Responses were randomized andcoded so as to protect student anonymity. Given the sensitive nature ofsome of the questions, we included many reminders to students thatcertain questions were optional and that their privacy would be protected.
The full survey is available upon request. In the 2021-2022 school year,
the student body was approximately 4,300 students. We recruited among
all students and received 60 responses, 57 of which were usable.
The survey was conducted by using Google Forms. We asked otherteachers to share the survey and we advertised it by making posters with
QR codes and placing the posters in five out of eight campus buildings.
The posters were designed with bright colors and images in order toattract the attention of our students. Anyone who completed the survey
was given a 500 yen Amazon voucher by email. On one day, two
researchers reserved a room for about three hours where students could
sit to complete the survey. About ten students came to the classroom thatday. All surveys were completed online using the Google Form.
We chose this style of survey for several reasons. One reason is that while
there were many questions that were multiple choice, checkbox, andLikert scale, allowing for easy analysis on our end, we wanted to leave
space for students to express anything else they felt necessary. Many
students were also still not taking courses on campus, so we needed asurvey that could be conducted remotely. We also wanted to use a format
the three of us and the students were familiar with since we would not beable to help them with technical problems.

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Brown, T., Goncalves, J., & Haugland, D. (2023). Student perceptions of disabilities at asmall Japanese university. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 13-26. English Language Institute, KUIS.

RESULTS AND ANALYSIS
Seventy percent of the respondents were first-year students at KUIS,
followed by 24% second-year, and 5% third-year students. This
composition of students is encouraging, especially since we intend on
having longitudinal studies of this group to examine how their perceptions
may change in the months and years to come.
With regard to gender (look at fig. 1 to see how we asked the question),
three-quarters identified under the broader category of female, answeringin both English and Japanese with wording such as “woman,” “women,”“female,” “女” (onna). 22% identified under the male category, answeringin both English and Japanese with words such as “man,” “men,” “男”(otoko). One student answered “その他” (sonohoka) a Japanese word
which roughly translates to other, and another replied, “男の娘”(otokonoko), which roughly translates to a feminine man.
Question 3
Students had a variety of responses to the question “When you hear theword “disability” what do you think of?” They were encouraged to be open
and to not feel pressure about what they would be expected to say as
their confidentiality was guaranteed. We coded responses with thefollowing categories: negative, neutral, positive, and empathetic.
Twenty of the responses (35%) could be considered negative in thiscontext; they were statements which explicitly or implicitly appeared tofocus on what the disabled individual was not able to do or how thedisabled individual was going to suffer from social exclusion andmarginalization. One answer was very explicit in this regard: “Likely to
become a target of discrimination. It causes trouble in daily life.”
Answers such as “not being able to do what you want to do”, “limited
physical or mental capabilities in order to carry out everyday tasks,”“negative, being handicapped, barrier” and “It makes people [sic] difficult
to do daily life” emphasized what was lacking in the lives of the disabled.
Being disabled was not seen as positive and there were no notions ofsociety itself needing to adapt or to become more accepting of thedisabled individual.
Some students expressed a negativity that did not only emphasize theburden that would be placed on the disabled individual, but also a burdenthat would be placed on others “Having difficulty with everyday tasks andrequiring assistance. Being restricted in movements; therefore, not being
able to go to places” and “a person who requires assistance in daily life,
roadblocks.”
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Other comments expressed more pity and paternalism than empathy. For
example, “I feel sorry for people who have disabilities because they haveso many difficulties in daily life. I feel pitiful and pathetic for them.” This
comment corresponds to similar ideas that could best be described asothering. Comments such as “different from others,” “being dysfunctional(= disability), an obstacle (thing/person),” “A hard life,” and, particularly,“Minority, crazy, scary” placed emphasis on the negative differences of adisabled person and how these individuals would stand out in less thanpositive ways.
Twenty (35%) responses could be categorized as neutral; these were
descriptions that simply stated a matter of fact and to the researchers
could not be contested factually, morally, politically, or ethically.
Statements such as “A person whose body may be different from standard
body types” possessed a more descriptive tone.
Twelve (21%) of the neutral statements used the word “inconvenient” or“inconvenience” which registered into the neutral category, as it is difficult
to dispute that the disabled will experience inconvenience on a moreregular basis due to current infrastructural standards. These statementsemphasized the fact that life for the disabled individual was what was“inconvenient.” The individual was not the “inconvenience.”
Question 3 & 39
We compared and contrasted answers to Question 3 of the survey, which
asked: “When you hear the word “disability,” what do you think of?” withquestion thirty-nine of the survey, which asked “How do you think Japandefines disability?” These answers were coded as similar, different, andfalling somewhere in the middle.
Respondents possessed an interesting contrast between their personalunderstanding of the word “disability” and their definition of how
Japanese society defines the word. Twelve (21%) of the respondents
possessed an understanding that could be best described as “similar andconsistent” between their personal view and the Japanese societal viewthat they referenced. For example, one respondent’s personalunderstanding of disability was “I have an image that they largely requireassistance from others for their own understanding of the word.” Thissame respondent also wrote, “the disabled can’t live without assistancefrom others.” These two responses are fairly similar with each other andshow that there is a consistency in outlook between the respondent’s
personal perception and the perceived perspective of Japanese society
writ large.
Another respondent’s personal perception described disability as “a stateof suffering due to one’s attribute” while describing the Japanese
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Brown, T., Goncalves, J., & Haugland, D. (2023). Student perceptions of disabilities at asmall Japanese university. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 13-26. English Language Institute, KUIS.

definition of disability as “at a disadvantage, because of their disabilities,”
further mentioning how people with disabilities in Japan are considered tobe “pitiful.” Finally, another respondent simply answered the question on
personal perception and the question on Japanese perception with“inconvenience.”
Four respondents (7%) had views that could be best described as being in
the middle-of-the-road and not having too much difference between theirpersonal perception and the larger Japanese society perception. One
respondent’s personal idea of the word disability was “limited physical ormental capabilities in order to carry out everyday tasks” while theirperception of the Japanese society’s vision of the disabled was describedas “people who are restricted from having a life.”
Thirty-three (57.9%) of the respondents had personal perceptions thatwere quite different from the perceived perceptions they shared forJapanese society at large. One respondent in particular shared that they
saw a disabled person as someone who “requires assistance in daily life”
concluding the statement with the word “roadblocks,” an answer that
centers around the deficiency of the individual instead of the society atlarge. This answer contrasts with their response to the way they believethat Japan itself defines disability. The respondent states that the disabled
are treated well “on the surface;” however, there is a differenceemphasized by the media, which focuses on differences. The respondent
went on to say that due to this, “people with disabilities are treated as[people] who really cannot fit into society. The media treats it as
miraculous when people with disabilities overcome their difficulties, getmarried, or become a CEO.” This respondent concluded with “I think thatis just so wrong.” This respondent’s analysis places more of the onus on
Japanese society’s inability to be more inclusive and welcoming to thosewith perceived disabilities, suggesting that it is not the individual but thesociety that needs to change its attitude to be more accommodating to
the disabled person.
Another respondent described their own personal perspective as being
one of inclusion and accommodation. “If there is anyone with disabilities
around me, I would like to support them. I know it is hard to live withdisabilities, but I wish them a happy life.” While their perspective ofJapanese society was one that described exclusion and marginalization,saying, “An illness that makes a person difficult to function normally.”
Conversely, there were some respondents whose personal perception of
those with disabilities was less-than-flattering (“minority,” “crazy,”“scary”) while their description of the Japanese society appeared to be
more compassionate. For example, one person said, “An illness that
requires constant assistance from others in order to lead a life.”
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Questions 4 and 5
Students were asked to mark which conditions, out of a bilingual list
containing a variety of physical, mental, and developmental (including
learning) disabilities they felt were disabilities. You can see the entire listin Figure 1.
Figure 1. List of conditions considered to be disabilities

The three specific learning disabilities we listed, Autism Spectrum
Disorder (ASD), ADHD, and Dyslexia, all received high rates of recognition
as disabilities. ASD received the highest rate with 48 respondents(84.2%) marking it as a disability. ADHD had 46 (80.7%) and Dyslexia
had 43 (75.4%) responses identifying them as disabilities. This answers
our second research question: Do students identify specific learning
difficulties such as ADHD as a disability? The answer is generally yes.
However, in Question 5 we asked if there were any terms in Question 4
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Brown, T., Goncalves, J., & Haugland, D. (2023). Student perceptions of disabilities at asmall Japanese university. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 13-26. English Language Institute, KUIS.

that were unfamiliar and 15 respondents marked that they were
unfamiliar with ASD. This means that there were a number of respondents
who marked both that ASD is a disability but also indicated that they were
unfamiliar with the term. Also several other respondents marked various
disabilities in both questions. One reason could be that while students
may understand that these conditions are disabilities, they may not know
exactly what the condition is or how it specifically affects people.
Likert Results
In the Likert section of the survey, we asked students to rate their level ofagreement to various statements relating to disability. In one section we
looked at students' beliefs about disabled people being separated from
nondisabled people. We used the statement structure, “People with _____
disabilities should be separated from the rest of society in _____.” In thefirst space we added the category of disability: physical, mental, or
learning. These three categories are based on the definition of disability
as outlined by Japanese law (Cabinet Office, n.d.). In the second space
we added sectors of life: school, work, or daily life. We asked students torate their agreement along a four-point scale of strongly agree, mostly
agree, mostly disagree, or strongly disagree. Results can be seen in Table
1.
Table 1. Agreement with the Separation of Disabled People Based on
Disability and Sector of Life

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In the sectors of life, disabilities in daily life was the most accepted. Over
95% of respondents disagreed with some degree of separation in all three
categories, and 100% disagreed with separation of people with mental
disabilities.
Of the categories of disabilities, physical disabilities received the highest
rates of disagreement with separation in all sectors of life. 96.5% ofparticipants disagreed with separation in school and 96.4% disagreed with
it in daily life. The work sector followed closely with 94.7% total
disagreement.
Disability in school appears to be the least accepted. Participants had thehighest levels of agreement that there should be some separation ofpeople with mental (21%) and learning disabilities (19.3%). Bothcategories received 17.5% mostly agree responses. Mental disabilities had
a 3.5% strong agreement rate versus 1.8% for strong agreement of
separation for people with learning disabilities.
Separation of people with learning disabilities had the highest participant
agreement rate at 19.3% total agreement in the school sector versus
8.8% total agreement in the work sector and 1.8% total agreement indaily life.
The work sector also received a 21.1% total agreement rate forseparation of people with mental disabilities. Additionally, it received theonly responses for strongly agree with separation (5.3%) across all
categories of disability.
However, we would like to indicate that this was a Likert scale question
and is not capable of giving a full picture of the participants’ true feelings.
All participants did have space to add additional explanations for answers,
though only two did. One participant states, “Some answers depend on
how the level disabled people are. And if normal people care,” while theother commented, “Their own individual wishes must be honored, rather
than arguing about whether they should or should not be segregated.”
With these responses we can see that there is an indication that students
believe there shouldn’t be a blanket separation of disabled people and it
should be up to the disabled people themselves instead of dictated bysociety or government. We would like to use this question as aspringboard for further research where we look more deeply into theseideas.
DISCUSSION
Our analysis of KUIS students demonstrates that respondents surveyedhave a generally high degree of acceptance of people with physical22
Brown, T., Goncalves, J., & Haugland, D. (2023). Student perceptions of disabilities at asmall Japanese university. Literacies and Language Education: Research and Practice,Spring 2023, 13-26. English Language Institute, KUIS.

disabilities in the venues of work, school, and daily life. However, about afifth of respondents believed that there ought to be some separation for
those with mental and learning disabilities. It is worth mentioning thatstudents were given the opportunity to elaborate on many of thesequestions and provide more nuanced answers on the degrees with whichpeople with non-physical disabilities ought to be accepted. This large
amount of acceptance from our students could have much to do with longstanding cultural and social mores; however, it is necessary to mention
that our respondents were all born since 2002 and that the Japanese
government’s effort towards integrating students with disabilities into
mainstream schools rather than special education schools has been in
effect since 2006 (Mithout, 2016). Also, learning disability has beenrecognized by law since 2007 (Heyer, 2015), exposing more Japaneseyouth to neurodiverse classmates. Generally, we saw the different
responses illustrate a reality where the respondents appeared to havecompassion and inclusion towards those with disabilities. Japanese society
was described by participants as being condescending and marginalizing
to those with disabilities. Another key point that readers should take awayfrom our study is that it is not intended to place judgment on students
but rather to be used as a tool for teachers, administration, and staff toaddress disability issues in the university.
Limitations
This data provided us with a fair degree of insight into the undergraduate
student body at KUIS. However, limitations of this data included someinaccurate translations (discovered by us after survey administration)
between Japanese and English, which also resulted in some poorly worded
survey questions and difficulty understanding answers. For example, one
question where we hoped to have a detailed answer resulted in students
giving only yes/no answers. We wanted to ask, “How do you think yourexposure to information about disabled people affects your perceptions of
disabilities?” However, the question was translated into Japanese as “Do
you think your exposure to information about disabled people affects yourperceptions of disabilities?” (see Figure 2). Our use of a Likert scale inmany of the questions also is limiting as it does not provide a fuller
picture of participants’ true feelings. In addition, 70.2% of our
respondents were freshmen, which does not make for a representative
sample of each year level on campus. We also separated physical, mental,
and learning disabilities which is certainly an oversimplification since
many people have disabilities that span multiple categories. Finally, thiswas a small survey at one small university in Chiba prefecture, so itcannot be taken as representative of general feelings of Japanese
university students. The hope is that it can add to the body of researchand be applied specifically to our university, but it cannot be used tocreate policy on a wider scale. In the next section we describe some of
the ways it can be used despite its limitations.
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Figure 2. Open-ended question

Recommendations and Future Research
Findings from this small study indicate that there is potential to learn
more about the environment and attitudes that students with disabilities
could face when entering our university. Our aim as educators is toencourage learners to take more control over their own learning, however,social and environmental factors may prevent learners from fully thriving.
There are numerous possibilities of potential follow-up research to thisstudy. As stated, we intend to follow these students longitudinally as mostare first-year students at the university. We hope to record theirperspectives on mental, intellectual, and physical disability over time to
document and analyze how their perspectives evolve. In addition, we
would like to select some students for more in depth interviews. Data andanalysis from these and future surveys can serve as tools to promoteawareness and acceptance of students with disabilities. Moreover, thisdata can serve as an additional tool of newer and more up-to-date
information for English-speaking educators in Japan looking to promote
institutional policies that will benefit their disabled populations. Other
studies we would like to follow up with are perceptions of teaching staff
and administration. By doing this, we could create a more complete
picture of the environment our students are entering. A survey of actual
accessibility resources that are already available on campus should havebeen our first step, but since it was not, this is another area for future
research.
As more Japanese students identify as being disabled (Moriya et al.,2019), it will be important to continue research projects like this alongwith smart, evidence-based policy solutions that provide comfort, support,
and acceptance to students and families who come to our universities.

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CONCLUSION
This paper addresses the literature around perceptions of disability andthe desire for more updated English-language research in this area. By
using Google Forms and analyzing our results, we were able to get abroad picture of some of our students’ opinions about disability. It is clearthat our data cannot be applied to a wide range of situations and theresearch has other limitations, but it did give us some insight into ourstudent body and we will continue the project to see how students’
perceptions of disabilities change over time. We sincerely hope that thestudents, teachers, and administrators at our university can benefit fromour research.
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