Special Educators as Secondary Content Teachers: How Justifiable?

Abstract

Although there is substantial variability regionally, in many states special educators are responsible for teaching core content classes to adolescents with mild disabilities. This study examined the degree to which pre-service training institutions value and provide content area background to secondary special educators. States were grouped according to the degree of content instruction provided by public school special educators. Seventy-eight training programs (38 from 13 "content-teaching" states and 40 from 13 "non-content-teaching" states) participated. The results indicated that pre-service training in content areas was minimal in importance and scope, with no differences between the groups. The results also indicated that science and social studies were considered significantly less important than English and mathematics and afforded correspondingly less training exposure. Implications for training and secondary school service delivery are discussed.