Are racial minorities over or underrepresented in special education?
Until now, most studies have found that they’re over-represented, suggesting that black students may be pushed into special education more often than they should be. Black students are 1.4 times more likely than all other races combined to be placed in special education. Almost one in five special education students age six or older is black.
But as with all public policy issues, it’s important to look deeper than the surface.
According to six researchers from Penn State University and the University of California, Irvine, racial minorities are actually under-represented in special education when compared with white children of similar characteristics.
“Minority children were consistently less likely than otherwise similar white, English-speaking children to be identified as disabled and so to receive special education services,” the researchers wrote in a new study published by Educational Researcher. Their research found that minority students are less likely to be seen as having learning disabilities, speech impairments, intellectual disabilities, health impairments or emotional disturbances.
Their research investigated children at elementary and middle schools in the United States. It adjusted for possible factors that would explain disparities at the individual, family and state levels, such as birth weight and family income.
Part of the problem may be that black students often attend low-achieving schools, so a given student with special needs doesn’t stand out as much from other students with poor behavior or academics. “Attending poorly resourced schools may result in referrals for special education only for those children displaying unusually low academic achievement or behavior relative to other, lower-performing children attending these same schools,” researchers wrote.
Other studies they cited placed the blame on parents. “Some minority families may prefer to rely on the social support of extended families to assist their children and so may not agree to evaluation requests for special education. … Cultural factors may also result in some minority groups attributing their children’s perceived lower academic behavioral functioning to systemic prejudice or other nonbiological explanations.”
Regardless of the cause, more research should be done to confirm their findings. The study examined only one grade year of students, although it followed them from kindergarten to eighth grade. A more expansive study that includes other groups of students could confirm how much racial differences in special ed fluctuate over time.
