Historically, African American students have been overrepresented in special education (National Education Association [NEA], 2007. Specifically, African American students have been identified with an emotional disturbance (ED) in special education at an excessive rate in comparison to students of other racial and ethnic categories (Office of…

Researchers in the field of special education has voiced concerns about the disproportionality of diverse students identified for special education services for decades. However, most of the recent research has focused on showing this issue using quantitative data. The voices beyond the numbers are imperative in better understanding this decades…

Research has indicated that African American children are placed in special education programs at a significantly higher rate than children from other races (National Center for Education Statistics, 2019b). Limited research has been conducted to address what is causing this overrepresentation. For this reason, research on African American…

As our student population becomes more culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD), the field of school psychology continues to have demands to improve upon best-practice procedures in accurately evaluating and identifying students with disabilities, without pathologizing cultural and linguistic differences. Specifically, students in the Armenian…

When an English learner is referred for an evaluation for disability and possible special education services, educators must establish a trusting relationship with that student's family, clarifying the process for them and making the family part of all decision making. Urtubey explains cultural differences we should be aware of in how many Latinx…

This chapter examines how studies focused on the same topic--disproportionality in special education--can generate vastly different conclusions about its sources and causes. By analyzing existing disagreements in the field, we explore essential questions about what constitutes high-quality and relevant evidence when seeking to understand how,…

The Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) emphasizes that state and local education agencies (SEAs/LEAs) must provide sufficiently trained staff so that English learners have equal opportunities for attaining English language proficiency and academic achievement across content areas without being "unnecessarily" segregated from non-ELs, thus…

Providing both a theoretical framework and practical strategies, this resource will help teachers, counselors, and related service providers develop understanding and empathy to improve outcomes for culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students with disabilities. The text features narrative portraits of six immigrant families and their…

Disproportionate representation and educational inequity are issues embedded in the history behind current services provided to students who are culturally and linguistically diverse with complex support needs (Artiles et al., 2005; de Valenzuela et al., 2006; Hosp & Reschly, 2004; Klingner et al., 2005). Research has shown that English…

Raising a child with a lifelong disability requires time, attention, and the development of skills to assist the child to be healthy and participate in usual childhood activities. Caring needs may include providing medical care, education, and support. The study aimed to determine the educational system and support systems for children with…

Studies have often focused on promoting students' basic psychological needs to support their learning in K-12 education and even in college education, although less work has been performed to determine the ways in which the needs are fulfilled in graduate school education. The current study examined reports by 11 graduate students who were…

Overrepresentation of Dual Language Learners (DLLs) in special education remains a problem even after 40 years of inquiry. One factor is that the U.S. federal government has neither clearly explained the definition of Specific Learning Disability (SLD) nor operationally defined it to identify children for special education services. This lack of…

Students identified as learners with specific Learning Disabilities (SLD) represent almost half of the total special education population. With the high numbers of students identified as SLD, there has also been the concern of over-identification of immigrant students called English language learners (ELLs), which leads to disproportionality in…

This article draws on evidence from interviews with directors of a diverse group of international gifted education organisations. The business models with which they operate and their obligation to satisfy various stakeholder expectations are found to compromise philosophical tenets and organisational aims, particularly those concerned with…

The Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (C-LIM) was developed to help practitioners determine the validity of test scores obtained from students who are culturally and linguistically different from the normative group of a test. The present study used an idiographic approach to investigate the diagnostic utility of the C-LIM for the Wechsler…