This document provides policy recommendations of the Council for Children with Behavioral Disorders (CCBD) regarding disproportionality in special education and the need for federal policy driving state regulations to support efforts to eliminate this outcome in schools. CCBD is committed to advancing knowledge, effective instruction, and advocacy…

African American students are disproportionately likely to be identified with the emotional disturbance (ED) education disability. To investigate how teachers' perceptions of students might vary by race, we analyzed Black and White teachers' ratings of 769 students with ED, subdivided by race and grade level, on six emotional and behavior problem…

A total of 87 inservice teachers and 99 preservice teachers viewed videotapes depicting inappropriate behavior of an African-American female, an African-American male, a white female, and a white male. The gender of the teacher and the gender of the student had the most influence on teachers' perceptions of behavior. (Contains references.)…

Although there has been long concern about underidentification or misidentification of children with emotional or behavioral disorders in special education, recent attention has also been focused on disproportionate racial and ethnic representation of children in the school category of emotional disturbance (ED). There is evidence that African…