Risk in Schooling: The Contribution of Qualitative Research to Our Understanding of the Overrepresentation of Minorities in Special Education

Abstract

This article reviews 15 qualitative studies examining factors contributing to the overrepresentation of minorities in special education. Eleven studies constituted numerical surveys of practitioner perspectives, with additional questions that were analyzed qualitatively. Four studies relied on face-to-face interviews or qualitative surveys, in-field observations, and review of students' documents. This review is organized into two main groups of studies—those that investigated stakeholders' explanations only and those that combined stakeholders' perspectives with direct investigation of actual practices. Findings reflected considerable overlap in explanations for disproportionality including poverty, family issues, intrinsic child deficit, and school-based issues such as professional bias regarding socioeconomic status (SES) and race. The article calls for increased use of qualitative studies to unearth the root causes of disproportionality.