Abstract
This article examines the nature of cultural politics in special education, specifically conceptual and methodological issues, as well as political implications related to minority disproportionate representation in disability identification rates. The implication of cultural politics is a focus on the hypothesis that minority disproportionate representation of minorities in special education is definitely a result of racial discrimination, accompanied by criticism of recently contested research suggesting their underrepresentation after controlling for confounds. Cultural politics has practical consequences, such as recently proposed policy changes that extract scarce sources from the education of students already identified as having disabilities. Special education is urged to focus on effective instruction and on three things in addressing disproportionality: (a) close adherence to facts and the best corroborating evidence; (b) explanations and theories that are testable, confirmable, and refutable on the basis of reliable data; and (c) clear and rational arguments that can be followed by policy makers. Carefully designed research to further explore this issue should recognize that (a) disproportionality is, by definition, a quantitative phenomenon and (b) replication and refinement of recent studies are needed.
Since Dunn (1968) published his often-cited article, “Special education for the mildly retarded: Is much of it justifiable?” issues related to race or culture have been prominent in special education in the United States. Dunn’s article was based in part on his observation that special classes for mild intellectual disabilities (known in the 1960s as special classes for the mildly retarded) served mostly African American students. This prompted closer inspection of the reasons students are identified for special education and the kind of education they receive as a consequence of identification. Much of this closer ongoing inspection was and still is needed. Following the publication of Dunn’s article, much attention has been given to the parentage of the children receiving special education (e.g., Artiles, 2011; Artiles, Kozleski, Trent, Osher, & Ortiz, 2010; Codrington & Fairchild, 2012; Connor, 2008; Harry & Klingner, 2014; Losen, Ee, Hodson, & Martinez, 2015; Losen, Hodson, Ee, & Martinez, 2014). Closer attention might have been given to the improvement of instruction in special education. In any case, the troubling issue of disproportionality should be addressed by careful attention to better research—by meticulous design and analysis of empirical data and well-reasoned interpretation thereof.
The indisputable disproportionate overrepresentation of culturally, linguistically, and ethnically diverse (often called “minority”) students with disabilities in special education based on raw percentages has become a rationale for research and reform (e.g., Ladner & Hammons, 2001; U.S. Department of Education, 2014, 2016). Disproportionality is a worrisome issue, but cultural politics may be relatively ineffective in making special or general education better for students of any cultural description. A focus on improving the implementation of special education law and special instruction is likely to be more beneficial in the long run (Anastasiou, Gregory, & Kauffman, 2018; Cannon, Gregory, & Waterstone, 2013; Kauffman & Badar, 2014, 2016).
Meaning, Fallacies, and Repercussions of Cultural Politics
Politics is “the activity through which people make, preserve, and amend the general rules under which they live” (Heywood, 2013, p. 2). In this broader sense, politics is viewed as the arena of public affairs, policy, and power (Heywood, 2013). We use politics to refer to the process of winning an argument in a polity, more particularly the agenda-setting and strategy used to win a contest of ideas and gain influence in an institution or organization. Our agenda as special educators should be to improve the education of students with disabilities, and our strategy should include the faithful implementation of the law, specifically the Individuals With Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 2004.
Cultural politics refers to winning arguments by making culture the central consideration in agenda-setting and strategy in education, sometimes applied for a good reason, sometimes for a bad reason. It is identity politics, applied to disabilities and schooling and obscurring other kinds of politics related to economic and educational inequality (Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2012; Anastasiou, Kauffman, & Michail, 2016; Anastasiou, Morgan, Farkas, & Wiley, 2017). Identity politics or the “politics of difference” relies on two core beliefs. The first is that the marginalization of a cultural group includes discrimination and oppression based on stereotypes and values of dominant cultural groups. The second is that “subordination can be challenged by reshaping identity to give the group concerned a sense of pride and self-respect” (Heywood, 2013, p. 160). Cultural politics in special education, as we think of it, is an extension of identity politics, which in the case of disability includes four underlying assumptions:
“Judgmental” disabilities such as intellectual disability (ID), learning disabilities (LD), and emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD), are primarily cultural phenomena (Annamma, 2015; Connor, 2008; Collins, Connor, Ferri, Gallagher, & Samson, 2016; Harry & Klingner, 2014).
What is perceived and labeled as disability for educational purposes is determined primarily by cultural factors, and can be viewed as marginalization through stereotyping and “ableism,” a pervasive system of discrimination and exclusion used to oppress people said to have disabilities (Connor, 2008; Hehir, 2005).
Cultural bias, racial discrimination, or cultural incompetence and ignorance are the primary causes of the disproportional identification of some minorities for special education (Artiles, 2011; Artiles et al., 2010; Codrington & Fairchild, 2012; Collins et al., 2016; Connor, 2008; Harry & Klingner, 2014; Losen et al., 2014, 2015).
Separate special education is segregationist by definition (Blanchett, 2009; Collins et al., 2016; Connor, 2008; Ferri & Connor, 2005). For example, Blancett (2009) discussed extensively the conclusion that “special education is the new tool for the resegregation of African American and other students of color in special education” (p. 370). Collins et al. (2016) stated that “Disability identification and segregated special education placements worked as political and cultural tools to maintain racial segregation within schools” (p. 12). Codrington and Fairchild (2012) depicted special education as a form of institutionalized racism (see especially).
Sometimes, special education is considered segregationist if it is not given to all cultural groups in proportion to their group’s percentage of the general population of students (Codrington & Fairchild, 2012; Losen, 2002; Sullivan & Artiles, 2011). Losen (2002) stated that “placement in special education has too often been a vehicle for segregating minority students” (p. 128).
At the core of cultural politics in special education is the argument that unless equal proportions of all specifiable cultural groups are identified for special education and receive both placements and services in equal proportions to all other cultural groups we should assume that cultural bias or incompetence is the primary explanation for disproportionality. We note again that disproportionality at a surface level as indicated by raw percentages cannot be denied based on data reported by the Office of Special Education Programs (U.S. Department of Education, 2016). Although certain minorities undeniably have long been identified for some categories of special education in numbers higher than their proportion of the general population, we maintain that this is not ipso facto an indication of unfair discrimination in education.
Evidence of discrimination requires that a minority group (e.g., African Americans) is overrepresented in special education, even after controlling for other important explanatory variables (e.g., school achievement, socioeconomic disadvantage). The influence of potentially confounding extraneous variables for different comparison groups is a matter of concern in educational research and social sciences, presenting a threat to a study’s internal validity (Bordens & Abbott, 2011; Johnson & Christensen, 2008; Wolff, 2009). Education cannot be an exception to the rule ceteris paribus (“all other things being equal”). That said, a large body of disproportionality research in special education is characterized by failure to account adequately for academic achievement, socioeconomic disadvantage, and meaningful additional potential confounds at the level of the individual (Anastasiou et al., 2017; Morgan & Farkas, 2016a, 2016b). Some assume racial/cultural discrimination without providing quantitative, corroborating evidence (e.g., Collins et al., 2016; Harry & Klingner, 2014). We note here that “qualitative research” cannot answer quantitative questions, and disproportionality is undeniably a quantitative concept referring to a comparison of numbers, more precisely proportions. Thus, the observation of disproportional overrepresentation is an inadequate reason to warrant the conclusion that racial discrimination, even if racial bias can be found in particular cases, is the cause of that disproportionality. Such a conclusion in the absence of confirmatory quantitative data is typical of a fallacy of defective induction (Copi, Cohen, & McMahon, 2014).
Assuming the truth of unproven and unwarranted propositions leads to misleading speculations. Speculation or conclusions based on feelings have often characterized postmodernism (Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2011; Blackburn, 2005; Sasso, 2001, 2007). Such speculation reflects circular reasoning, and a fallacy of presumption, in which the conclusion of an argument is stated or assumed in one of the premises (Copi et al., 2014)—that is, it “begs the question.” For example, some seem to say that the fact of overrepresentation of minorities in special education based on raw percentages proves that special education is segregationist—a tool or vehicle for the segregation of minority students. However, the judgment of racial discrimination based on this observation or based on other examples of discrimination is fallacious. Identification and placement in special education are actually the ultimate outcomes of individual traits, systemic factors, and educational procedures (e.g., student academic performance and behavioral functioning, general education teachers’ concerns, evaluation procedures). Special education is embedded in the national education system, which is, in turn, embedded in a social system of abysmal economic inequalities in income and wealth (Saez & Zucman, 2014; Wolff, 2015)—all, also, quantitative concepts. Blaming special education by association for the problems of the whole educational and social system is a fallacy of relevance (Copi et al., 2014), in which the premises (racial and economic inequity in society and disproportionate access to quality general education) are irrelevant to the conclusion (racial discrimination in special education).
Beyond the fact that cultural politics seems to include the implication that special education may be racist (definitely a possibility), there is also the problem of political and economic repercussions. Disproportionality is a matter for investigation by the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) because disproportionality suggests that the civil rights of minority students identified for special education are possibly being abridged—that minorities are being disadvantaged by receiving special education or being placed in what are considered more restrictive settings in disproportionate numbers without good reason.
As a consequence of the assumption that special education abridges the rights of minority students, cuts of billions of dollars up to 15% of federal funding for existing special education programs for students aged 6 years to 21 years were planned under a Notice of Proposed Rule Making (NPRM), the money to be transferred from existing special education programs to the development of comprehensive coordinated early intervening services (CEIS; U.S. Department of Education, 2016). The proposed rules would require not only cuts but also monitoring disproportionality in school districts that have a disproportionate number of minority students (a) placed in separate special education settings for more than 20% of the school day, (b) identified as needing special education, or (c) disciplined.
Concern for overidentification for special education and the possible injustice or disservice of being placed in special education has apparently been part of the scandal of denial of services to students with disabilities in Texas. In fact, revelations of the various rationales used in Texas to deny services to students with disabilities included the purported concern for overidentification of African American students for special education (e.g., Rosenthal, 2016; Rosenthal & Barned-Smith, 2016).
Unclear is how juxtaposing existing special education and early intervening services, leading to austerity in existing special education, would improve instruction for children with disabilities in any educational environment. These unjustified “culturally-based” policies are intended to reduce overrepresentation of minority students in special education. However, they (a) have a faulty conceptual basis and are supported by very weak evidence (Anastasiou et al., 2017; Morgan & Farkas, 2016b; Morgan, Farkas, Cook, Strassfeld, Hillemeier, Pun, & Schussler, 2017), (b) are based on a misunderstanding of the disproportionality problem that may exacerbate inequity in education for minority students by reducing their access to much-needed special education and related services, (c) falsely interpret special education services as a form of discipline.
Possible Explanations of Disproportionality
Any misidentification of disability—either a false positive or a false negative—in either identification or placement can be a result of bias or multicultural incompetence, and such bias must be avoided in every way possible (see Forness, Freeman, Paparella, Kauffman, & Walker, 2012; Kauffman, Mock, & Simpson, 2007; Kauffman, Simpson, & Mock, 2009). Nevertheless, disproportionality could also be accounted for by factors other than racial bias in identification, and it is important to note how any of these other factors or any complex combination of them could explain the phenomenon. Cultural bias or incompetence is one possible explanation, but certainly not the only one. Even if cultural bias is part of the explanation, it could conceivably operate in the opposite direction of that assumed, such that it results in underrepresentation of minorities. Bias causing overrepresentation would be of most concern when special education is considered worthless or worse regardless of need for it, but bias resulting in underrepresentation would be of most concern if special education is considered a helpful service to those who need it.
Cultural Bias or Incompetence
One can argue that disproportionality means something is wrong with schools or special education. Harry and Klingner (2014) noted the role of social inequalities in society in contributing to the overrepresentation of minority students in special education. Yet, without convincing evidence, they fault special education—or education in general, just which is not clear—for overrepresentation because, they say, educators look for intrinsic deficits in children. They conclude that special education’s lofty aims have been subverted by what they call a “fixation” on finding a deficit in the child and the correct label for it. So, in essence, they pose but have not really answered the question, “Why are so many minority students in special education?” except to blame educators for looking for the wrong thing or looking at things in the wrong way. Yet, the things they suggest special educators not do are precisely those they must do if special education is to be legitimate (Kauffman, Anastasiou, & Maag, 2017). Moreover, it is entirely possible that educators do not typically (a) choose the “wrong students,” misidentifying them as having disabilities when they really have none, (b) offer the “wrong services” for students with disabilities, giving them services they do not really need, or (c) offer special help to students with disabilities in the “wrong place,” including them in special education programs when the students could be better taught in general education? When it comes to disproportionality, the answers await research showing, respectively, that overrepresentation is (a) a function of often wrongly identifying minority students, (b) often a terrible mistake because special education does many students more harm than good, and (c) a problem primarily because special education is better when it is provided in general education classes, if not by general education teachers.
We do understand that societies differ in the way they manage the problems of exceptional children (see Ahrbeck, Badar, Felder, Kauffman, & Schneiders, 2018; Anastasiou, Gardner, & Michail, 2011; Anastasiou & Keller, 2011, 2017). However, we must seek whatever potential or partial explanations are suggested by rigorous, replicable, and replicated evidence.
Socioeconomic Disadvantage
Poverty and low socioeconomic status (SES) play a powerful role in creating risk for a wide variety of poor psychosocial and health outcomes in the United States (Betancourt et al., 2016; Noble et al., 2015; Pascoe et al., 2016). Early multivariate studies using district-level data indicated that economic variables play a significant role in explaining minority disproportionate representation in special education (Hosp & Reschly, 2004; Oswald, Coutinho, Best, & Singh, 1999). Only the study of Skiba, Poloni-Staudinger, Simmons, Feggins-Azziz, and Chung-Geun (2005) using district-level data from one state controlled for district-level averages, found that poverty makes “a weak and inconsistent contribution to the prediction of proportionality across a number of disability categories” (p. 130). However, Anastasiou et al. (2011) warned that such a finding must be viewed with caution.
More rigorous studies controlled for confounding variables, including socioeconomic disadvantage. Strand and Lindsay (2009), using individual-level data of 6.5 million students adjusted for gender and poverty, indicated that all 15 ethnic minorities relative to White British students were equally represented or underrepresented in moderate learning difficulty (MLD); severe learning difficulty (SLD); specific learning disability (SpLD); and behavioral, emotional, and social difficulties (BESD), with the exception of Pakistani students with SLD and Black Caribbean and mixed White and Black Caribbean students with BESD. This English study reported these findings, although it used the dichotomous variable of free school meals to indicate poverty, a poor measure of SES (see Harwell & LeBeau, 2010).
Recent well-designed, peer-reviewed U.S. studies using individual-level data and controlling for socioeconomic disadvantage and other confounds found that racial or ethnic minority students are underidentified or equally identified across a wide range of disability conditions and several age groups, including SpLD, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), emotional disturbance (ED), intellectual disability, health impairments, and speech or language impairment (see Morgan et al., 2017; Shifrer, Muller, & Callahan, 2011).
An exception was a study by Sullivan and Bal (2013) that has two major methodological limitations. First, the authors used the dichotomous variable of free or reduced lunch, a poor measure of social and economic disadvantage. Second, Sullivan and Bal (2013) failed to control for measures of academic performance. They justified this by stating that they wanted to avoid “endogeneity problems,” that is, “inclusion of variables that may have been the result of having been identified for special education, rather than the cause” (p. 479). This is a spurious statement based on weak and inconclusive evidence, and biased reasoning, supposing that special education is mostly the cause of academic problems. Sullivan and Bal (2013), controlling basically for free or reduced lunch, found that the free or reduced lunch variable, which the authors loosely considered a proxy measure for low SES, attenuated the race effects for SLD for African American students, but race remained significant. However, in the ED and cognitive impairment categories, after controlling for free or reduced lunch race was not significant.
In brief, the evidence is growing that low SES—if and when appropriately measured—is an important factor in explaining a significant part but not all of the disproportionality phenomenon. However, this does not necessarily infer racial discrimination. Our assumption—based on the best evidence (e.g., Morgan et al., 2016)—is that in some special education categories, the influence of SES may be mediated by actual behavior, including school achievement.
Nevertheless, years of work have been invested in refuting the socioeconomic disadvantage hypothesis in favor of a “cultural discrimination” assumption based on evidence of one study that used district-level data and seems to have many methodological weaknesses (see Anastasiou et al., 2011; Morgan & Farkas, 2016b; Morgan et al., 2015). For example, O’Connor and Fernandez (2006) criticized the report of the National Research Council (2002) because it emphasized the effects of poverty in explaining the overrepresentation of minority students in special education, arguing that the report also oversimplifies development and neglects to concentrate on how culture and school organization produce the phenomenon.
To sum up, cultural politics strengthens the tendency to magnify the role of culture and play down the significance of socioeconomic disadvantage and other confounding variables, despite the weak evidence for cultural explanations a decade ago and the fact that the best evidence now contradicts the cultural bias hypothesis. In the cultural bias hypothesis, cultural factors (e.g., attitudes, cultural bias, school expectations and structures, lack of cultural competence) function as causal arrows, whereas other social structural factors such as poverty, malnutrition, and poor health care are assumed to be of relatively little importance in a person’s learning ability. But this has not been consistent with what we know about risk factors in disabilities across and within countries (Durkin, 2002; McLoyd & Purtell, 2008; Morley & Lucas, 1997; Pascoe et al., 2016). Neither is it consistent with what we know today about the detrimental effects of low SES on neural development in early childhood, even at 1 month of age (Betancourt et al., 2016; Noble et al., 2015). Evidence strongly suggests that African American children disproportionately experience poverty (see The Annie E. Casey Foundation, 2018; Patten & Krogstad, 2018), and their disproportionate poverty may put them at higher risk for having problems in school.
Health-Related and Health Care Factors
Health-related and health care factors could contribute to disproportionate overrepresentation of students from different cultural groups in many disability categories. It is noteworthy, that public health and health care literature also contradict the cultural bias hypothesis of disproportionality. Morgan et al. (2015) summarized the relevant literature showing that the health-related needs of minority children are often neglected.
Our results are also consistent with findings repeatedly reported in the pediatric and public health fields where covariate adjustment is more common. For example, Flores and the Committee on Pediatric Research’s (2010) synthesis (including 82 studies using covariate adjustment) indicated that racial and ethnic health disparities were “extensive, pervasive, and persistent” (p. 979). Minority children were found to be less likely to be diagnosed with autism, learning disabilities, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and other health conditions than otherwise similar White children. Other reviews have found similar inequities (e.g., Berry, Bloom, Foley, & Palfrey, 2010; Miller, Nigg, & Miller, 2009; Zuckerman, Mattox, Sinche, Blaschke, & Bethell, 2014). Reports of minority overrepresentation in special education, which have largely not controlled for known confounds, conflict with this larger and more rigorous body of research in pediatrics and public health (Morgan & Farkas, 2015).
Some groups of people more often experience disadvantages such as poverty, malnutrition, dangerous community circumstances, or other risk factors that are associated with disabilities and reflect social inequalities in an unequal, stratified and discriminatory society. Some life circumstances are known to be disadvantageous to children’s physical and mental development, and these life circumstances are not randomly distributed across all cultural groups. The fact that some life experiences are known to be disadvantageous is hardly in question (see Gordon, 2017; McLoyd & Purtell, 2008; Pascoe et al., 2016). In discussing the general neglect of children’s mental health services, Sanchez and her colleagues commented, “The situation is particularly concerning for racial and ethnic minority children who receive fewer and poorer-quality mental health services compared with their non-Latino white peers” (Sanchez et al., 2018, p. 153).
Actual Behavior: School Achievement and Behavior
Recent studies (e.g., Hibel, Farkas, & Morgan, 2010; Morgan et al., 2015; Morgan et al., 2016; Morgan, Staff, Hillemeier, Farkas, & Maczuga, 2013; Shifrer et al., 2011) have indicated that the strongest confounding factor in disproportionality is individuals’ behavior, such as school achievement. This is not surprising, given that Hibel et al. (2010) found school achievement seems to mediate family SES. Besides, Morgan et al. (2015) found that the role of actual behavior (mainly school achievement, but also externalizing behavior problems) of an individual is a key confound in the identification of minority students, especially African Americans with learning disability(ies) (LD), ID, ED, language impairment, and other health impairment (OHI). Morgan et al. (2015; Morgan et al., 2016) concluded that the collective findings of their studies suggest that schools are likely to identify children as disabled on the basis of their academic achievement, behavioral self-regulation, and externalizing problem behaviors.
In addition, externalizing behavior increases the risk of being identified as having ADHD, OHI, and EBD (Morgan et al., 2015; Morgan et al., 2013). Another study by Morgan and Farkas (2016b) clarified further important role of school achievement. A Mexican immigrant scholar in the United States has eloquently stressed how the cultural politics of special education works to suppress identification of minority students who need special education: . . . given the history of discrimination against different ethnic populations, teachers fear making a mistake in referring students from ethnic backgrounds for special education evaluation. The fear of making a mistake and the bias against special education makes teachers hesitant to make the special education referrals, and the hesitation increases when the disability is less obvious (e.g., a learning or behavioral disability). (T. Ochoa, personal communication, April 22, 2016)
Perhaps, the key issue in the disproportionality literature is whether teachers make referrals, and multidisciplinary teams identify disabilities and find students eligible for special education, not on the basis of observable and measurable behavior but on the basis of stereotypes and (unconscious) race/ethnic bias (see Losen et al., 2014; Losen et al., 2015). Findings from multivariate studies controlling for actual behavior at the individual level overwhelmingly show that the problem runs in the opposite direction of suspicion that teachers overidentify minorities. Teachers and other specialists seem to adjust common behavior standards, making thresholds for referral higher for minority students, probably in fear of being considered “racists” and unconsciously trying to “segregate” students. The “higher thresholds hypothesis” (meaning less concern for, more tolerance of, and greater delay in referral for low achievement or problem behavior) may also explain, at least in part, why minority students are placed in more restrictive settings after being found eligible for special education—if their problems must be more severe before they are identified, then it is likely they will need a “more restrictive” environment or more intensive intervention.
Disciplinary Procedures
True, African American, Latino, and American Indian students are disproportionately represented in suspensions and expulsions (Gregory, Skiba, & Noguera, 2010; Losen et al., 2014; Losen et al., 2015). But, it is unclear how and why policy makers see a connection to special education. It is a great mistake to consider punishment or disciplinary procedures along with special education, as special education is not legitimately considered a disciplinary procedure. That is, discipline and special education are separate issues, and considering them the same issue is unfair to special education. If a student is placed in special education as a disciplinary procedure, that is a clear corruption of the law.
Losen et al. (2014) treated the variables of identification for special education as an independent variable and suspension rates at the district level as a dependent variable, which rather contradicts preexisting literature, including the treatment of the same pair of variables by Skiba et al. (2005) and Sullivan and Bal (2013). Directionality in observed correlations is always a problem that requires a sound rationale.
Losen et al. (2014) seemed to consider bias against disability to cause disproportionality in discipline at the district level. However, disability rates and disciplinary rates at the district level—that is, percentage averages—are not the appropriate way to use data to reach conclusions at the individual level, as such conclusions can be subject to an ecological fallacy. In addition, at an individual level, the relationship between disciplinary procedures and disability identification can also run in the opposite direction. Acting out and other forms of externalizing behavior problems can appear as discipline problems in schools, and this can trigger alarm mechanisms such as the referral process of a student to an evaluation team for determination of disability and special education services.
Directionality of a correlational relationship is a major issue in determining causality, and sometimes has led to hasty or wrong conclusions. For example, consider the well-known older issue of eye movement-reading ability correlation. Contrary to early speculation, erratic eye movements do not cause reading disabilities. Instead, difficulties with reading comprehension lead to erratic eye movements (Stanovich, 2013). The relationship runs in the opposite of the first-assumed direction.
Conceptual Problems in Investigating and Addressing Disproportionality
Disabilities are not randomly distributed among children, regardless of the risk factors we identify. In fact, the concept of risk of disability itself (aside from general risk with reference to no particular life circumstance or behavior) is based on the idea that disabilities are not randomly distributed. One could, perhaps, argue that no cultural group experiences risk factors more than another, but that would require denying what we know about the racial/ethnic inequities and associated socioeconomic inequities that persist in our society. It is sad that many people dramatically underestimate the actual level of wealth inequality in the United States and the consequences of low income and low net worth for people’s lives (Davies, Sandstrom, Shorrocks, & Wolff, 2009; Keister, 2000; Saez & Zucman, 2014). The tragic irony is that while socioeconomic inequalities are reaching historic highs (Saez & Zucman, 2014), many special education experts seem not to understand that poverty—often accompanied by physical and mental health problems and low school achievement—plays a critical role in suppressing critical cognitive–linguistic functioning and creating a variety of developmental disabilities (Betancourt et al., 2016; Gordon, 2017; McLoyd & Purtell, 2008; Noble et al., 2015).
Part of the difficulty in coming to terms with disproportionality is the dual nature of the problem: over- and underrepresentation (see Forness et al., 2012; Kauffman & Badar, 2018; Kauffman, Hallahan, Pullen, & Badar, 2018; Kauffman & Landrum, 2009; Kauffman et al., 2007; Kauffman et al., 2009). Should we be concerned about underrepresentation or only overrepresentation? A letter from the U.S. Department of Education suggests that only overrepresentation is of concern (W. W. Knudsen, personal communication, July 28, 2008). This may be official USDOE policy, but it is inconsistent with the concerns of some special educators who see special education for those with disabilities as more helpful than hurtful (e.g., Forness et al., 2012; Kauffman et al., 2018; Morgan et al., 2015; Morgan et al., 2016). Of course, if (a) special education is seen as undesirable or (b) overrepresentation is seen as the only serious problem because it is the only problem people are complaining about, then the letter W. W. Knudsen (personal communication, July 28, 2008) is understandable.
In any given area of service, we should be aware of two proportions and take both into account. Kauffman and Landrum (2009) pointed out that underrepresentation and overrepresentation in any service must be evaluated in the context of the prevalence of the phenomenon for which the service is provided and judgment of the helpfulness of the service. Thus, underrepresentation should be seen as a particular problem when the estimated prevalence is higher than the percentage of the population served; considering the reverse, overrepresentation should be seen as a particular problem when the percentage of the population served is higher than estimated prevalence. Underrepresentation is generally felt to be regrettable when the service is seen as helpful, but overrepresentation is generally felt to be regrettable when the service is seen as useless or worse.
Disproportionality is a quantitative concept, an imbalance in percentages or proportions. One might argue about just how precisely equal the proportions must be to be judged problematic (see Kauffman & Lloyd, 2017 for discussion of mathematical/statistical phenomena involved in judging sameness and difference). Nevertheless, for any given quantity, one cannot have overrepresentation of one quantity without underrepresentation of another to which it is compared (i.e., the proportions must equal 1.00 or the percentages must equal 100). And, whether a quantity is said to constitute over- or underrepresentation depends on the quantity to which it is compared. Thus, X could be said to be overrepresented compared with Y as a proportion of Z but underrepresented when the comparison is with Z′; conversely, Y could be said to be underrepresented, both in comparison with X as a proportion of Z and as an expected proportion of Z′. Thus, African American students could be at an observed level overrepresented compared with Caucasian American students among those receiving special education for EBD, yet be underrepresented among students with EBD when the comparison is with the prevalence of EBD. Others have pointed out that this is, in fact, the case (e.g., Forness et al., 2012; Kauffman et al., 2007, 2009). Qualitative studies can offer important leads for quantitative research, but they cannot tell us the extent of disproportionality or whether disproportionality is waxing or waning.
A frequent mistake of those promoting any social policy is that it, or a particular reform of it, will work only as intended and have no unintentional consequences—that it will be perfect (Gillon, 2000). However, no policy (i.e., law) is perfect, which means not only that there will be unintended consequences but that it will ill-serve some individuals. Although we regrettably must live with this reality, we must also live with the reality that some policies are better than others, and it is quite unwise to scorn a particular policy (such as applied in special education placements) because we can find instances of its misunderstanding, abuse, or disservice to an individual. This most certainly does not mean that we become insensitive to the plight of individuals who are badly served by a social policy, but it does mean that we do not allow a social policy’s value to be measured by its failures alone. Finding and recognizing failures of a policy and taking action to remedy failures for individuals are necessary. Nevertheless, focusing on failures without weighing them against successes, while equivocating about the value of the policy, is not just unwise, but a common tactic of those who would like to dismantle any government policy that helps more people than it hurts (see Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2009). Unfortunately, much of the literature on minority disproportionate representation in special education fits the pattern of criticism and equivocation that characterizes arguments to dismantle government programs of many kinds.
Finally, we note that another conceptual problem in disproportionality is whether special education is good for students with disabilities if they are in subgroup X, but not if they are in subgroup Y (given that they have the same type of problem or disability in school). That is, should special education be different for students differing in color, parentage, nation of origin, gender, religion, or other marker of “culture?” To the extent that the answer is “yes,” the risk of separation of students by color, gender, and so on is raised, as it then becomes logical to argue for special schools or classes for students depending on their “cultural” designation.
The civil rights movement involving racially segregated schools was based primarily on the argument that children differing in color must have identical treatment in schools because they do not have special learning needs based on their parentage, whereas children with disabilities must have education that is modified to meet their needs because they have special learning needs unrelated to their parentage. For example, the assumption of federal laws and court decisions has been that although “race” and similar markers of culture do not call for different treatment (i.e., in Brown v. Board of Education, separate was found to be inherently unequal), appropriate education for children with disabilities requires their identification and cannot always be provided in general education (i.e., the IDEA requires identifying students with disabilities and providing for them a full continuum of alternative placements). Mixing the two human rights issues is conceptually and methodologically irrational because disability and parentage are not analogous (Anastasiou & Kauffman, 2013; Anastasiou et al., 2016; Kauffman et al., 2018; Kauffman & Landrum, 2009; Zigmond & Kloo, 2017). But to the extent that disability is assumed to be the same as the racial stereotypes leading to the Brown decision, attainable goals are sacrificed and irrationality in addressing learning problems and discrimination regarding disabilities are reinforced.
If minority status and disability status are different matters conceptually, then the issue of disproportionality should not matter to us except to the extent that it is (a) a function of the bias of educators or (b) a function of risk factors outside of schools that could be corrected (e.g., inequity in housing, employment, health care, and so on) mediated partly by actual behavior at school (e.g., academic achievement, behavioral functioning). What educators need to do is guard against the error (a) (above) and work to remedy the inequities involving (b) (above) without blaming education, general or special, for disproportionality in the absence of convincing evidence.
The reported disproportionality pattern does not necessarily prove that there is something wrong with the decisions of educators. If controlling for confounds ultimately reveals the underrepresentation of a group in special education, then we should wonder whether discrimination is actually a problem of economic inequity that overlaps with racial inequity. Misunderstanding of the problem—which appears to be the case according to the most recent and rigorous evidence—could result in budget cuts for special education and draconian measures for monitoring and addressing the presumed but misleading cause (overidentification) of overrepresentation based on raw statistics. Underserved students could then be further underserved in the attempt to avoid racial discrimination, an unfortunate consequence of cultural politics (see Rosenthal, 2016).
Is Special Education a Potential Solution or Part of the Problem?
The implicit or explicit assumption that special education does more harm than good is problematic. The assumption often seems to be that most or all bad outcomes for students with disabilities are attributable to special education itself—that special education is at least as much a cause of these bad outcomes as it is a helpful response to disability. Concern about disproportional overrepresentation is not, as far as we know, a function of anyone worrying that minority children are getting too much of a good thing or more than their fair share of a helpful service. At the least, special education is assumed to do students no good and to be, on balance, no better than general education. Part of the problem here is that the horrible legacy of racial discrimination warps thinking about the nature of special education (see Gliona, Gonzales, & Jacobson, 2005; Kauffman & Landrum, 2009; Kauffman & Lloyd, 1995). And part of the assumed problem is that special education would be better were it just practiced in a different place and conceptualized as a part of general education (see Kauffman & Badar, 2016).
Conceptualizing special education as racial segregation or discrimination against overrepresented cultural groups on the basis of disproportionality impedes research into the problems of those who are overrepresented. It impedes the achievement of equity and justice in education. It has precisely the opposite effect of that called for by those who rely on cultural politics to further their arguments that many children are misplaced in special education.
Conceptually, special education is a compensatory program—one designed to compensate for students’ lack of achievement and opportunity to learn in general education. It is not a program designed to give students something second rate, to shunt students into dead ends, or to keep students from achieving what they might (see Gerber, 2017; Zigmond & Kloo, 2017). Improvement of special education as envisioned in the IDEA, not artificially addressing overrepresentation by failing to refer and identify minority students for special education, has been called “a solution hiding in plain sight” (Cannon et al., 2013).
Special education is part of the problem of students only insofar as it is sidetracked by political distractions in the name of culture that are not grounded in effective instruction. It is a potential solution to the extent that it focuses attention on effective instruction of those who are particularly hard to teach. Its potential as a solution is not enhanced by restructuring schools, pretense that the mathematics of statistical distributions do not apply to learning or learning problems, or a focus on something other than instruction (see Kauffman, 1989, 2010; Kauffman & Lloyd, 2017). It is designed for those students who are not well served in general education; it has been and must be different from general education, even when general education is very good (Zigmond & Kloo, 2017).
Concluding Remarks
We are concerned that we live in a society in which economic disparities are closely intertwined with racial inequities that deny people equal opportunities (Shapiro, Meschede, & Osor, 2013; Wise, 2010; Wolff, 2009, 2015). Unequal risk factors undoubtedly contribute to the raw percentage of disproportional overrepresentation in special education.
The problem of disproportionality is serious and demands careful attention, including (a) close adherence to the facts and evidence, as departure from the facts precludes moral clarity (see Neiman, 2008); (b) construction of theories from a body of knowledge, such that the theories are testable, confirmable, and refutable on the basis of reliable data (see Bunge, 1991); and (c) clear and rational argumentation, so that the details and logic of the concepts involved can be followed by policy makers (see Zigmond & Kloo, 2017). We are concerned that children receive the services they need and that those services are of high quality, regardless of their parentage.
Special education needs to give more attention to instruction than it now does, and to focus more on instruction than on the parentage of the students it serves. Special education will be better for the children who receive it and truly sensitive to cultural differences only if it offers effective instruction, specifically more effective instruction than the students it serves would receive in general education (Kauffman & Badar, 2014, 2016; Kauffman, Conroy, Gardner, & Oswald, 2008; Zigmond & Kloo, 2017).
We must now ask whether much of the cultural politics of special education can be justified, for Dunn’s article was instrumental in launching an era in which special education is not only driven in large measure by cultural politics but also is often depicted in negative terms, even by some working for its improvement (see Kauffman & Hallahan, 2005; Kauffman, 2009; Kauffman et al., 2017, 2018). Following Dunn’s (1968) article, special education has been increasingly portrayed as segregationist, discriminatory, a strategy for limiting children’s futures, second rate, dead end, a focus on deficits and negative labeling, and unnecessary if general education is properly restructured. Much of the damning of special education has been accompanied by comparisons of it with racial segregation and other loathsome practices in which skin color, genetic heritage, religion, national origin, gender, gender orientation, or other marker of “culture” not related to disability is used to discriminate against individuals.
A growing body of rigorous evidence shows that these generalizations were too hasty based on qualitative studies or few quantitative studies with serious methodological limitations (Anastasiou et al., 2011; Anastasiou et al., 2017; Gordon, 2017; Morgan & Farkas, 2016b; Morgan et al., 2015; Morgan et al., 2016; Sullivan & Bal, 2013). This definitely demands further consideration. But speculating or “theorizing,” embracing presumptions, and assuming that defective inductions are reliable might have misled the field of special education. Special education has been under siege, convicted, and is perhaps to be punished by extracting scarce sources from it for a crime that it has not committed—unless its crime has been the neglect of a focus on improvement of instruction (Kauffman et al., 2018; Zigmond & Kloo, 2017). This monumental miscarriage of justice, based on weak evidence, poor judgment, and unfounded speculation can further hurt the quality of minority students’ education (see Gordon, 2017).
Needed Research
What we call “cultural politics” should not be dismissed out of hand, as it is entirely possible that the problem of disproportionality is a result of the unfairness called discrimination. Qualitative research can suggest what to look for, but it cannot do the looking. The needed research must be quantitative because the concept of disproportionality is, by definition, quantitative. Only quantitative research of high quality can answer the question whether disproportionality is due to cultural bias. The research needed to answer the question whether disproportionality is the result of cultural bias would necessarily address the matter of false identification (i.e., false positives) and false negatives (i.e., failure to identify true cases). It would need to ask whether students are identified or not identified as needing special education because of a cultural marker (e.g., race or ethnicity), not for other reasons, and whether such mistakes occur frequently enough to account for an observed disproportionality (there is no doubt that both false positives and false negatives do occur; the question is in what proportion of cases they occur).
Replication of the best-designed studies, particularly those coming under fire from critics because the studies do not deliver findings of overrepresentation of minorities, are essential (see Hibel et al., 2010; Morgan et al., 2015; Morgan et al., 2013; Morgan et al., 2016; Morgan et al., 2016; Shifrer et al., 2011). Such replication is necessary to base educational decisions on evidence rather than unsubstantiated belief (Cook, Therrien, & Coyne, 2016; see especially Travers, Cook, Therrien, & Coyne, 2016).
The matter of disproportional representation in special education should be addressed not only by rigorous research but also by careful, cautious, critical interpretation of findings. The notion of ceteris paribus—meaning “other (relevant) factors being equal” or “other (relevant) factors held fixed”—is a necessary statistical condition to control for confounding variables in multiple regression models and has been extensively used in other fields such psychology, political science, and econometrics (Anastasiou et al., 2017; Clarke, 2005; Duncan, Magnuson, & Votruba-Drzal, 2015; Wooldridge, 2013). But this is not a sufficient condition. Regression estimators can be biased by the exclusion of the most relevant variables (e.g., school achievement), so that the generated values do not reflect the true effect of the independent variable (e.g., race or SES) on the dependent variable (i.e., identification rates; Clarke, 2005; Duncan et al., 2015; Wooldridge, 2013). The omitted-variable bias, as discussed by Clarke (2005) and Wooldridge (2013), occurs when a multiple regression model leaves out one or more important factors. Then such a regression model can over- or underestimate the effect of one of the other factors. Hence, the omission of a relevant variable has been characterized as a phantom menace (Clarke, 2005). As we have already suggested, such an omitted-variable problem seriously affected the first generation of regression studies in disproportionality (e.g., Skiba et al., 2005; Sullivan & Bal, 2013). The work of Morgan and his colleagues, representing a second generation of disproportionality studies, appears to be free from both the omitted-variable bias and the ecological fallacy of studies that used aggregated data to make inferences about individuals (Anastasiou et al., 2017).
Although scientific findings may be upsetting to some because they do not confirm what the researcher or reader believe, truly scientific fields thrive on new knowledge (Graziano & Raulin, 2013) and rational argumentation about it. Critics of the work of Morgan and his colleagues are currently being challenged to design their own studies using even more rigorous research designs to refute findings showing that African American children are, in essence, underrepresented in special education. After all, scientific research is an evolving process of inquiry, creating specific answerable questions and then systematically trying to find reliable answers. We use hypotheses and theories, but constantly question their validity (Graziano & Raulin, 2013).
Science recognizes no “sacred cows,” and this applies to all theories and persons (each and every one, including ourselves). If we want special education to become a truly scientific field of study (Kauffman, 2011; Kauffman et al., 2017), then this must apply to all research on disproportionality and all those who do or read the research as well. Cook, Lloyd, Mellor, Nosek, and Therrien (2018) have suggested that open science can increase the trustworthiness of evidence in special education. We suggest that open science be used in addressing the serious matter of disproportionality as well as the science of instruction in special education.
Footnotes
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.