This study examines replacement of labels for stigmatized students, using the cases of culturally deprived/disadvantaged (CD terms) and at-risk It questions whether at-risk merely replaced the CD terms, and thus did not represent any substantive change among policymakers and educators. A theoretical framework for understanding label replacement is synthesized from the sociolinguistics and policy analysis literature and then applied to the two cases. A review of education titles from 1961 to 1994 suggests a pattern of replacement, with a wave of CD titles in the 1960s and 1970s, followed by a wave of at-risk titles in the 1980s and 1990s. The two labels did apply to the same categories of students. However, analysis suggests that label replacement is not a simple process. Educational administrators must be skeptical of each new labeling trend and its effects on educational funding and programs.
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