Bringing to life the voices of children, families, and school personnel, this bestseller describes in detail the school climates and social processes that place many children of color at risk of being assigned inappropriate disability labels. Now in its third edition, this powerful ethnographic study examines the placement of Black and Hispanic…

This article explores the difference between parental involvement, where parents' activity levels at school are primarily structured by schools, and parental engagement, where parents have a more active voice in how they take part in what goes on in schools. This difference is underscored as a means of illuminating ways of addressing the issue of…

The "Brown" decision laid the foundation for accountability provisions in the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (1997, 2004) that require reporting of overrepresentation of students of color in special education. This article examines the issues surrounding this equity-focused legal reform that prioritized disproportionate…

The second edition of this powerful book examines the disproportionate placement of Black and Hispanic students in special education. The authors present compelling, research-based stories representing the range of experiences faced by culturally and linguistically diverse students who fall in the liminal shadow of perceived disability. They…

Background: The Response to Intervention (RTI) approach involves the use of a dynamic model built around the systematic documentation of students' response to research-based instructional interventions. Although there has been widespread implementation of RTI models for early intervention and in some cases, as a means to identify students with…

Family-centered care and responsiveness to diversity are issues of great import for early childhood special education teachers. Nevertheless, the research for these related areas is divided throughout the field. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of a master's-level course designed to integrate instruction in family-centered…

This article supports the perspective of Jan Valle regarding the importance of recognizing the subjectivity inherent in decisions about Learning Disabilities. The author argues that the perspectives of both parents and professionals are informed by subjective judgments that must be taken into account in decision making. A reciprocal approach to…

This review identifies research-based definitions of ideal collaborative relationships between special education professionals and culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families of children with disabilities, examines research on actual collaboration with such families, and makes recommendations regarding improvement of such collaboration.…

To date, few researchers have sought to examine the effect of issues of race, culture, language, and disability, let alone to look specifically at the intersection of these issues, as it relates to special education identification, special education service delivery, and students of color's access to an equitable education. Thus, this article will…

This article discusses the construction of the "emotional disturbance" (ED) category in the cases of four African American elementary students. These cases represent a sub-set of data from a three-year ethnographic study of the special education process in a large, culturally/linguistically diverse school district. Based on interviews,…

This article responds to recent calls for greater clarity and transparency regarding methods in qualitative research. On the basis of a 3-year ethnographic study of the overrepresentation of minorities in special education, the authors address key tenets of grounded theory and attempt to reconcile some of the methodological challenges inherent in…

Based on a study of the special education placement process in a large city in the United States and two studies in different regions of Spain, the authors offer a comparative analysis of the relationship between professional beliefs and practices and the achievement of culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students. The data focus on…

This article is in response to Dr. Jim Kauffman and colleagues' article titled "Problems Related to Underservice of Students With Emotional or Behavioral Disorders," which was published in volume 33, issue 1, of "Behavioral Disorders." The work referenced by Kauffman et al. was a report of a 4-year ethnographic study of the processes by which…

The parent-school relationship for families of students with disabilities is clearly prescribed by law and is one of the main tenets of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), 2004 (Newman, Cameto, & Hernandez, 2005). The measurement of this relationship presents a challenge in the context of what is meaningful participation,…

Multicultural education generally seeks to challenge processes that reproduce inequality, whereas special education sometimes creates standards of normality and separate systems that reflect larger social inequities. A social reconstruction approach envisions a single, unified system of education for all in which staffing, administration, and…