Disproportionate Representation Of Minority Students Research Articles

Minority Representation in Special Education: 5-Year Trends

The disproportionate representation of minority students in special education has been a concern for decades. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act mandates states to have policies and procedures in place to prevent inappropriate over identification or disproportionate representation by race and ethnicity of students with disabilities. The purpose of this study was to investigate the current status of minority representation in special education given the mandate and related efforts to reduce overrepresentation and to identify trends for the 5-year period from 2004 to 2008. Growth models were used to analyze trends in national data collected from the 50 states and the District of Columbia for these 5 years. Findings indicate some improvements from 10 years ago, especially noteworthy are a significant decrease in the number of African American students and a moderate decrease in the number of Hispanic students categorized as having intellectual disabilities. However, during the same period, the number of Hispanic students in learning disabilities increased. Otherwise, the trend of racial/ethnic representation in special education remains the same as it was a decade ago.

The song remains the same: transposition and the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education

The disproportionate representation of minority students in special education has long been recognised as a problem in the United States. It is, however, only with the 2004 authorisation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) that Congress has tried to prescribe a remedy for this. Beginning with a deconstruction of the case law, public law and policy interpretations built around IDEA, this paper will first use an understanding of the concept of ‘institutional ablism’ as it has been developed within disability studies, to challenge the widely accepted view of IDEA as civil rights legislation. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, the article will then offer a further deconstruction of IDEA focusing on the IDEA’s attempt to address the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education. The analysis of the law illustrates the use of a mechanism that I will call transposition: the use of the legally accepted segregation of special education to maintain the effects of the unacceptable and illegal segregation by race. The analysis will make the case that the development of special education in the United States offers yet another example of interest convergence, specifically that of the marginal disability rights gained with the creation of special education converging with the white interest of recouping the losses of the US Supreme Court’s historic Brown v. Board of Education desegregation decision.

Extending Classwide Social Skills Interventions to At-Risk Minority Students: A Preliminary Application of Randomization Tests Combined with Single-Subject Design Methodology

Disproportionate representation of minority students in special education programs is a continuing issue of concern. A social emotional curriculum, the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS), was implemented in a classwide and curricular-integrated format with initial effects evaluated for 3 third-grade African American children identified as at risk for special education referral. Effects were examined using direct observations of each target child's cooperative play in a multiple-baseline design across subjects with intervention onset randomized. Visual and randomization test analyses showed increased cooperative play associated with the PATHS intervention. The combined design and analysis may serve as a viable response-to-intervention approach for reducing referral assessment bias of at-risk minority students. Benefits and limitations of the analysis methods and the PATHS intervention are discussed.

Achieving Equity in Special Education: History, Status, and Current Challenges

Among the most-longstanding and intransigent issues in the field, the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education programs has its roots in a long history of educational segregation and discrimination. Although national estimates of disproportionality have been consistent over time, state and local estimates may show varying patterns of disproportionality. A number of factors may contribute to disproportionality, including test bias, poverty, special education processes, inequity in general education, issues of behavior management, and cultural mismatch/cultural reproduction. This article provides a report on the history, measurement, status, and factors contributing to disproportionate representation in special education, and offers recommendations based on an understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in special education as a multiply determined phenomenon.

Examining Educational Equity: Revisiting the Disproportionate Representation of Minority Students in Special Education

Continued concerns about educational equity for minority students require looking beyond analysis of enrollment in primary disability categories to additional issues of educational opportunity for students receiving special education services. This study examined the relationship between student ethnicity and language proficiency status with (a) number and type of disability labels, (b) access to the least restrictive environment, and (c) ancillary services using data from a large southwestern school district. Data quality was also examined as part of this study. The results suggest that minority students and English language learners were disproportionately enrolled in special education and placed in more segregated settings. A trend toward increased disability labels for minority students was also identified. Implications for research and practice are discussed.

Felipe's Story in Response To The National Research Council Report

The National Research Council (NRC) report on the disproportionate representation of minority students in special and gifted education represents an opportunity to draw national attention to the challenges faced by educators as they attempt to provide highquality educational opportunities for students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Although the report provides a thorough inventory of the factors that influence school achievement and behavior of students from diverse backgrounds, it generally overlooks the needs of English language learners. As educators and researchers attempt to address the issue of disproportionate representation, the experiences of students from diverse linguistic backgrounds must be considered. Drawing on the school experiences of Felipe, a native Spanish-speaking student, this article illustrates the dilemmas that educators of English language learners face and the resulting disproportionate representation of linguistically diverse students in special education. While Felipe's case is not representative of all linguistic minorities in the United States, it provides a framework for considering issues that extend beyond the information included in the NRC report.

Felipe's Story in Response To The National Research Council Report

The National Research Council (NRC) report on the disproportionate representation of minority students in special and gifted education represents an opportunity to draw national attention to the challenges faced by educators as they attempt to provide highquality educational opportunities for students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds. Although the report provides a thorough inventory of the factors that influence school achievement and behavior of students from diverse backgrounds, it generally overlooks the needs of English language learners. As educators and researchers attempt to address the issue of disproportionate representation, the experiences of students from diverse linguistic backgrounds must be considered. Drawing on the school experiences of Felipe, a native Spanish-speaking student, this article illustrates the dilemmas that educators of English language learners face and the resulting disproportionate representation of linguistically diverse students in special education. While Felipe’s case is not representative of all linguistic minorities in the United States, it provides a framework for considering issues that extend beyond the information included in the NRC report.

Disproportionate Representation of Minority Students in Special Education: Academic, Demographic, and Economic Predictors

Research on variables that predict disproportionate representation of minority students in special education has often ignored an important variable—academic achievement. This study examined the prediction of representation of students from various minority racial/ethnic groups using district-level academic, demographic, and economic blocks of variables. The relative strength of these blocks was tested using weighted multiple least squares regression. The results show that academic achievement added significantly to predictive models for various racial/ethnic groups and disability categories. Implications and directions for future research are also discussed.

Disproportionate Representation in Special Education: A Synthesis and Recommendations

Disproportionate representation of minority students in special education remains a very controversial, unresolved issue. This synthesis summarizes historical perspectives and current knowledge about disproportionate representation with respect to: (a) definitions of disproportionate representation and related issues of interpretation; (b) national and state-level estimates of disproportionality for four ethnic groups; (c) legal, policy, research and teacher education responses to disproportionality; and (d) hypothesized causes and predictors of disproportionality. Authors stress the need for: coherent and well-articulated conceptual frameworks, responsible use and representation of data, research dialog that is informed by appreciation of the complex sociopolitical history and current context, and the need for effective advocacy to improve the educational success of minority students.

The Disproportionate Representation of Minority Students in Special Education

This article identifies specific content that teacher trainers in special and general education should consider incorporating into preservice training programs in an effort to address the over- and underrepresentation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education programs. The development of multicultural education as a body of knowledge and the continuing work in bilingual education on issues related to effective teaching strategies for working with language-minority and second-language learners suggest a variety of approaches for all students. Contributions from these fields can be of benefit in developing effective practices and programs for diverse special needs learners. Examination of this work and its application in special education settings is suggested.

Identification and Assessment of Students with Disabilities

Students with disabilities or suspected disabilities are evaluated by schools to determine whether they are eligible for special education services and, if eligible, to determine what services will be provided. In many states, the results of this evaluation also affect how much funding assistance the school will receive to meet the students' special needs. Special education classification is not uniform across states or regions. Students with identical characteristics can be diagnosed as disabled in one state but not in another and may be reclassified when they move across state or school district lines. Most disabilities with a clear medical basis are recognized by the child's physician or parents soon after birth or during the preschool years. In contrast, the majority of students with disabilities are initially referred for evaluation by their classroom teacher (or parents) because of severe and chronic achievement or behavioral problems. There is evidence that the prevalence of some disabilities varies by age, the high-incidence disabilities such as learning disabilities and speech-language disabilities occur primarily at the mild level, the mild disabilities exist on broad continua in which there are no clear demarcations between those who have and those who do not have the disability, and even "mild" disabilities may constitute formidable barriers to academic progress and significantly limit career opportunities. Problems with the current classification system include stigma to the child, low reliability, poor correlation between categorization and treatment, obsolete assumptions still in use in treatment, and disproportionate representation of minority students. Both African-American and Hispanic students are disproportionately represented in special education but in opposite directions. The disproportionately high number of African Americans in special education reflects the fact that more African-American students than white students are diagnosed with mild mental retardation. Though poverty, cultural bias, and inherent differences have been suggested as reasons for this disproportionate representation, there are no compelling data that fully explain the phenomenon. In most states, classification of a student as disabled leads to increased funding from the state to the school district. This article suggests a revised funding system that weights four factors (number of deficits, degree of discrepancy, complexity of intervention, and intensity of intervention) in a regression equation that would yield a total amount of dollars available to support the special education of a particular student.