It is often difficult to distinguish those students with learning problems due to individual differences in learning styles or achievement difficulties from those students with specific disorders; failure to do so sometimes results in inappropriate referral of language minority students to special education. It also contributes to disproportionate…

This issue describes how researchers are studying ways to reduce the overrepresentation of students from minority backgrounds in special education. It begins by discussing problems associated with inappropriate classification and placement of minority students, including being denied access to the general education curriculum, being placed in…

This paper discusses the challenges of identifying gifted students from underrepresented or special populations. Reasons for underrepresentation of students from special populations are reviewed and include biases in standardized testing, underreferral of students from diverse cultural and ethnic groups to gifted programs by teachers, and the…