Author
Ms ZHANG Jie
Organisation/Institution
Beijing Normal University Law School
Country
CHINA
Panel
Law and Society
Title
Legal Literacy Gap in China’s Specialized Schools: Risks and Reforms from the Perspective of Full-time Teachers
Abstract
Specialized schools (zhuan men xue xiao) in China nowadays play an increasingly vital role in the nation’s response to juvenile delinquency and misconduct. However, as the establishment of specialized schools remains in its nascent stages nationwide, the safeguarding of the rights and interests of both staff and students has not yet received sufficient attention. Drawing on survey data from 36 full-time teachers at a specialized school in eastern China, which represents nearly the entire teaching cohort at this institution, given its small scale and closed staffing structure. This exploratory study examines the legal literacy gap among frontline staff and its implications for juvenile rights and institutional legitimacy. Findings reveal that most teachers have received little or no systematic pre-service and in-service training, despite routinely managing high-risk students with behavioral or psychological challenges. When confronted with noncompliance or emotional crises, teachers frequently resort to informal disciplinary measures such as physical exercises or public reprimands, reflecting both procedural uncertainty and a lack of legally grounded intervention tools. Notably, “legal knowledge” consistently ranks among the top competencies educators wish to improve, signaling awareness of their own preparedness gap. This deficit not only heightens the risk of rights violations, including infringements on privacy, dignity, and due process, but also exposes teachers and institutions to legal and ethical liability. Framed within China’s juvenile protection legislation, which emphasizes “education over punishment” and the best interests of the child, the current training vacuum undermines the very legitimacy of specialized education. The paper argues for a three-pronged institutional reform: (1) mandating basic legal literacy as a basic criterion of employment; (2) integrating modular, practice-oriented legal training into in-service professional development; and (3) establishing on-site legal advisory support to guide real-time decision-making. By bridging the legal literacy gap, specialized schools can transition from sites of control to spaces of lawful, rights-respecting rehabilitation, advancing China’s juvenile justice system toward greater alignment with regional and international human rights norms.
Biography
ZHANG Jie is a PhD candidate in Jurisprudence at Beijing Normal University Law School (expected 2027), holding an LLB and BA in Portuguese from BNU and an MA in Comparative Education from University College London. Her research lies at the intersection of educational law, juvenile justice, and children’s rights. As a young scholar in education and law, she is dedicated to integrating interdisciplinary research methodologies and putting them into practice. This research is based on her field survey data and focuses on special schools and special education for juvenile crime prevention in China. She presented in Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) 2025 Annual Conference, with her research titled Relative Deprivation and Social Justice: Awarded Extra Points Policy in College Entrance Examination for Ethnic Minority Candidates in Guangxi, China and received a Travel Award for youth academics from East Asia SIG. Committed to interdisciplinary yet legally grounded scholarship, she seeks to explore issues of rule-of-law governance within the field of education.
