Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Teachers in Special Education: Repairing or Redesigning the Leaky Pipeline

Abstract

In this article, we introduce some of the issues that interact to produce the "leaky pipeline" we refer to in the title—a pipeline that results in a dearth of persons of color having professional jobs in special education. These issues serve to influence the entrée and flow of persons from diverse cultural and linguistic (CLD) backgrounds throughout the personnel pipeline feeding special education and related services careers. The issues discussed include factors affecting the availability of CLD persons for higher education degrees, the 2- and 4-year and graduate systems of professional induction and development, some of the contemporary dialogue regarding the problematic vision of special education, and the conceptual framework of special education in light of the ontological worldviews of some CLD persons. Finally, we review training trends and successful programs in order to highlight directions available for sensitively engaging not only demographic realities, but a more pluralistic outlook on teacher education and services to children. What these trends and successful programs show, given the leaks in the pipeline and lack of a shared vision for special education training and services, is that local people responding to local needs are the best at both repairing and redesigning the pipeline.