Diverse Students In Special Education Research Articles

Racial/Ethnic Disproportionality and Special Education Assessment: Policy Analysis and Recommendations for Practice

The overrepresentation of racially/ethnically diverse students in special education is a well-established malady of public education in the United States with dire consequences for both students and school districts. This manuscript provides a review of federal statutes and pertinent case law, as well as guidance offered by the Office of Special Education Programs that elucidates the need of school districts to check for the overrepresentation of racially/ethnically diverse students in their special education programming. Further, the review indicates that school districts must ensure that students receive a nondiscriminatory special education evaluation. A discussion is presented that offers districts with recommendations for tracking the presence of overrepresentation through the calculation of risk ratios. Strategies for ensuring the delivery of nondiscriminatory special education evaluations are provided including ensuring the fidelity of test administration, norm over-sampling, use of local norms, examination of test invariance, and multi-method/multi-informant assessment process.

Culturally Responsive Data-Based Decision Making in High School Settings

Engaging in culturally responsive practices is considered best practice in classroom instruction, particularly within diverse schools, however, when making data-based decisions, there is little guidance for culturally responsive practitioners on how to engage in this work. This article introduces a model of culturally responsive data-based decision making (CR-DBDM) by outlining culturally responsive practices and combining them with Deno’s IDEAL (Identify, Define, Explore, Apply, and Look) problem solving model. The article provides members of high school-based problem-solving teams (PSTs), working within a response to intervention (RTI) framework, suggestions for decision making in ways that do not contribute to the disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education and empowers students and families by valuing their voices throughout the RTI process.

Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners in Special Education: English Learners

The multidimensional issue of the representation of diverse students in special education has been a persistent and challenging concern for decades. Overwhelmingly, research outlining racial and ethnic disproportionality data have historically demonstrated stability in the overrepresentation of students of color in special education. However, the growing number of culturally and linguistically diverse learners also requires an examination of the representation of English learners in special education as well. This article provides an overview of trends and issues in both underrepresentation and overrepresentation of English learners in special education. Contributing factors for variability, as well as recommendations for future research and improved practice are provided.

Caregiver Engagement: Advancing Academic and Behavioral Outcomes for Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in Special Education

The Every Student Succeeds Act encourages home, school, and community partnerships as a method for improving academic achievement. Districts who seek federal funding must provide outreach to all ca...

Special Education Policy Change

Research suggests that disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education has been a recurring topic of concern in the field of special education within the United States. Over the past few years, this concern has shifted to focus on the disproportionate representation of English Language Learners (ELLs) in categories of mild to moderate disabilities, specifically within the category of learning disabilities. Although improvements in educational policy have been made through federal legislation, local rural school districts continue to battle this concern, especially those in rural areas. The following article focuses on the recommendations for development, implementation, and evaluation of local policy change to improve the disproportionate representation of ELL students within rural school districts.

A Multiyear National Profile of Racial Disparity in Autism Identification

Disproportionate representation of racially diverse students in special education is a well-documented problem, yet few studies have systematically evaluated disproportionate representation of diverse students with autism. This study examined disproportionate representation of racially diverse students with autism by determining risk and logistical odds ratios among racially diverse and White students from the national population between 1998 and 2006. Although overall risk of autism increased for all racial groups every year, White students were twice as likely to be identified with autism as Hispanic and American Indian/Alaskan Native students during most years of the sample. Although initially overrepresented, the odds ratios for Asian/Pacific Islander and Black students with autism continuously declined in recent years. Hispanic and American Indian/Alaskan Native students were significantly underrepresented every year in the analysis. Potential cause and implications of underrepresentation are described, along with directions for research.

Teacher Efficacy Beliefs Toward Serving Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in Special Education

Educating a nation of culturally, ethnically/racially, and linguistically diverse (CLD) students is one of the many challenges facing teachers and teacher educators, resulting in teachers’ questioning their ability to improve learning for these groups. Yet teacher efficacy is significantly related to student achievement, motivation, and students’ own sense of efficacy (Tschannen-Moran & Hoy, 2001). Given continuous patterns of disproportionate representation of CLD students in special education, as well as inadequate services, it is important to understand the relation between teacher efficacy and success of CLD populations. The purpose of this pilot study not only examined the reliability of newly developed survey instrument but also investigated urban in-service special education teachers’ perceptions about their abilities to teach CLD students. Thirty-one teachers participated in this study. Among these teachers, six agreed to join the follow-up debriefing. The results demonstrated adequate reliability, and several hypotheses were formulated during analyzing data and discussed with peer debriefers. Implications of this study will be provided.

The Misrepresentation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in Special Education

Young, Wright, and Laster (2005) stated that since the Brown v. Board of Topeka, Kansas decision, gaps in educational achievement have been a recognized problem across the United States. Particularly, differences in achievement levels for elementary and secondary African American students have remained. Daniels (1998) stated that students who are culturally and linguistically diverse have always been challenged with inequality in our system of education. This article examines the critical issues resulting in the misrepresentation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education classes in America’s schools.

A Framework for Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Design of Response-to-Intervention Models

Response to Intervention (RTI) was encoded into the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004, and is being adopted on a wide scale as an alternative approach to identification of students with learning disabilities. For RTI to be an effective mechanism for addressing disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education, its focus must go beyond school and classroom implementation of academic or behavioral interventions to also address systemic factors that may be contributing to educational underachievement for students from non-dominant socio-cultural groups. This article offers a systems framework for culturally and linguistically responsive implementation of RTI, that takes into account the sociopolitical, cultural, and linguistic contexts of school reform efforts. Features that differentiate this model from current conceptions in the literature are described, and implications for implementation, research, and personnel preparation are identified.

Addressing the Disproportionate Representation of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students in Special Education through Culturally Responsive Educational Systems

In this article, we present a conceptual framework for addressing the disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education. The cornerstone of our approach to addressing disproportionate representation is through the creation of culturally responsive educational systems. Our goal is to assist practitioners, researchers, and policy makers in coalescing around culturally responsive, evidence-based interventions and strategic improvements in practice and policy to improve students’ educational opportunities in general education and reduce inappropriate referrals to and placement in special education. We envision this work as cutting across three interrelated domains: policies, practices, and people. Policies include those guidelines enacted at federal, state, district, and school levels that influence funding, resource allocation, accountability, and other key aspects of schooling. We use the notion of practice in two ways, in the instrumental sense of daily practices that all cultural beings engage in to navigate and survive their worlds, and also in a technical sense to describe the procedures and strategies devised for the purpose of maximizing students’ learning outcomes. People include all those in the broad educational system: administrators, teacher educators, teachers, community members, families, and the children whose opportunities we wish to improve.

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.

Recruiting and Retaining of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Groups in Special Education: Defining the Problem

The present article serves as an introduction to a special issue on recruiting and retaining culturally and linguistically diverse populations into the field of special education. Members of the Diversity Committee of the Teacher Education Division (TED) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) and selected guest were invited authors. Highlighted in the preliminary article are factors that contribute to the rapid decline of diverse educators, such as inadequate outreach and recruitment that limit diverse faculty and students in colleges and universities, limited financial assistance for post-secondary education, and the invalid use of teacher competency exams to measure teaching skills. As well as other effects, the problem primarily lends to the over-representation of diverse students in special education. Subsequent articles in this issue will suggest viable and effective strategies teacher educators can employ to increase the diverse teacher pool. After reading this issue, we hope that you will have a broad range of options to alter current teacher education programs to “entice” culturally and linguistically diverse preservice educators.