What's So Special about Special Education? A Critical Study of White General Education Teachers' Perceptions Regarding the Referrals of African American Students for Special Education Services

摘要

This study addressed the problem of the disproportionality of African Americansin special education by conducting critical white research. A review of literaturerevealed that research using this methodology had not been conducted with thisproblem in mind and that critical white theory might be a wise choice in order tounderstand this issue more fully. This study sought to fill that gap by providinginformation on the perspectives of white general education teachers regarding thereferral and potential placement of African American students in special education.White teachers were selected in order to explore this phenomenon from a criticalwhite perspective. Since most teachers are white, this population is critical in thedevelopment of an understanding of the problem of disproportionality. The purposeof this study was to identify the perceptions of white general education teachersregarding the:1. ability, behavior, and school readiness of African American students; 2. instruction, referral, and potential placement of African Americanstudents in special education;3. gaps that exist in the preparation of general education teachers regardingthe instruction of African American students.The constant comparative (Glaser & Strauss, 1965) technique resulted in theidentification of six themes. These themes supported the current research andconfirmed that a lack of cultural responsiveness, a deficit view, and amisunderstanding of the special education referral process and potential servicescontributes to the gross disproportionality of African Americans in special education.The added perspective of my being a special education administrative practitionerand parent added a depth of understanding to this crisis that has not been previouslyexplored in-depth literature. Also, a useful model called the pipeline to specialeducation was developed to understand what occurs between general education andspecial education. Finally, a critical white perspective revealed that dominant whitevalues in the classroom may perpetuate marginalization in the form of privilege onthe part of the teacher to be permitted to abdicate responsibility for struggling AfricanAmerican students by referring them to special education.