Practitioner Oriented

The disproportionate representation of students from certain racial and cultural backgrounds in special education is a result of students being identified as disabled due to factors such as educators’ perceptions, the quality of students’ education, the culture of the school and language differences between the students and the educators. This issue can be very harmful to the students that it affects, and is a problem for practitioners at many urban public schools.

One article by Irvine (2012) discusses the relationship between special education and multicultural education by examining four related topics: disproportionate representation, cultural misunderstandings, tensions between home and school and competition for limited resources. Like other articles, Irvine (2012) cites studies that show how students of certain racial backgrounds, especially African American students, are more likely to be placed in special education systems. More importantly, they report that African American disabled students are much more likely than their White disabled peers to drop out of school. Irvine (2012) proposes that the root of disproportionality in special ed comes from cultural misunderstandings and incorrect evaluations of certain groups of students by teachers. They also suggests that there are tensions between home and school for some racial groups, and cited studies showing that African American families often fear that teachers are looking for reasons to place their children in special education to fulfill accountability standards. Lastly, Irvine (2012) acknowledges that some urban schools actually have financial incentive to place low achieving students in special ed. The researcher’s recommendations included more culturally responsive teaching both inside and outside special education, which involves more training for teachers that encourages positivity and open mindedness in their classrooms. They also emphasize the need for far more teachers of Color in schools.

Another article by Whitford et al. (2016) discusses the potential consequences that students who are placed in special education face, especially when it comes to disciplinary action taken against them. The researchers report on disproportionality in disciplinary measures, and how that disproportionality affects students in special education.  In their paper Whitford et al. (2016) report that students with disabilities are two to three times as likely as their peers to be suspended, despite safeguards put in place to ensure that this doesn’t happen. The study also reports extra high levels of disproportional discipline for students who have emotional and behavioral disorders, who have been show to be 11 times as likely to receive exclusionary discipline as their peers in special education. They also cite a study showing that students with learning disabilities are often targeted, arguing that juvenile detention centers have disproportionately high levels of males with learning disabilities compared to males with other disabilities. While this article does not discuss disproportionality in special education directly, this article is highly related to why disproportionality in special education is a problem, because it can lead to students who are place in special education being suspended or kicked out of school whether or not they should have been placed in special education in the first place.

Whitford et al. (2016) conclude that exclusionary discipline that isolates students from their peers often marginalizes the most vulnerable students, like students who are already marginalized racially or culturally, or students in the special education system. Their recommendations for practitioners include developing fair and consistently implemented disciplinary measures, creating positive environments rather than zero tolerance environments, providing extra support and educational opportunities for those who do receive exclusionary discipline, strengthening teacher and student relationships and conducting annual reviews of disciplinary practices (Whitford et al., 2016)

Links to articles:

Irvine (2012)

Whitford et al. (2016)