Centering the Margins: Dynamic Systems,Targeted Universalism,and Special Education

The Whole Child in Context

The SoLD, including a dynamic ecological systems framework, posits that development involves the continuous interplay of children’s individual characteristics and their experiences within the multilevel ecologies in which they live and grow (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020). An important aspect of this framework is that the various factors that make up a child’s developmental system tend to be bidirectionally linked and operate as correlated constraints with each factor influencing and being influenced by all the others (Magnusson & Cairns, 1996). Correlated constraints have two key implications for supporting children with disabilities. First, the impact of intervention is likely to be constrained if the focus is only on one factor and does not take into consideration the contributions of other relevant factors. Second, when there are difficulties in one domain of functioning, it is useful to leverage strengths in other domains of the child’s developmental system to foster adaptation. Carefully adapting instructional and ecological supports to align with a child’s strengths and needs may mitigate the impact of disability and promote sustained positive growth (Farmer et al., 2021).

Acknowledging Inequities and Centering the Margins

There is a tendency in developmental science to act as though all children have the same experiences and, in turn, to deny inequities in opportunities that constrain the growth of some youth (Spencer et al., 2019). If classrooms are centered on support for the majority and are not responsive to students with disabilities, we may create environments that impede their learning. The concept of targeted universalism suggests that universal service delivery structures should be designed so the daily functioning of individuals who are in the minority become centered so supports are created to promote the everyday success of each person, not just those in the majority (Powell et al., 2019).

Current multitiered systems of support (MTSS) may constrain the opportunities of minoritized youth, particularly youth in special education (Farmer, Lee, & Therrien, 2022). MTSS is centered on universal (Tier 1) strategies designed to be effective for about 85% of students. This means students who are not responsive to Tier 1 will receive more intensive selective (Tier 2) support (often delivered in small groups in pull-out settings) or targeted (Tier 3) support that is individualized and often tailored in one-on-one support with relevant service providers. Although Tier 2 and Tier 3 supports for students with disabilities are certainly needed and welcomed, this approach to service delivery can have the effect of saying that we cannot tailor or adapt the daily (i.e., universal) experiences of students with disabilities until they are “fixed” and have the same everyday functional support needs of children in the majority population (Farmer, Serpell, et al., 2022). Consistent with targeted universalism, there is a need to build from our knowledge base on dynamic systems and the concept of correlated constraints to create a tiered system that is designed to be responsive to the developmental needs of minoritized youth at the universal level (Farmer et al., 2021). A tiered system of adaptive supports (TSAS) has been proposed that builds from MTSS, reflects the principles of targeted universalism, and leverages the SoLD to create progress monitoring frameworks to systematically adapt practice elements of evidenced-based programs to the specific needs and circumstances of youth receiving special education services (Farmer, Lee, & Therrien, 2022; Farmer, Serpell, et al., 2022).

Development is probabilistic (Gottlieb, 2007). The concept of equifinality suggests that individuals may get to the same developmental outcome from highly different circumstances and trajectories, whereas multifinality posits that persons with similar backgrounds and pathways may have dissimilar outcomes (Cantor et al., 2019; Cicchetti & Rogosch, 1996). This variability reflects the propensity of an individual’s developmental system to reorganize at any point across the life course relative to shifts in opportunities and ecological circumstances (Cairns & Cairns, 1994). A “one size fits all” approach to intervention is likely to be inadequate, and a focus on standardized outcomes may constrain pathways to success for many students with disabilities and other students (Darling-Hammond et al., 2020; Farmer, 2020). To guide tailored intervention for youth receiving special education, we need to establish frameworks to use data centered on the strengths, needs, and developmental trajectories of individual students relative to their current personal and ecological circumstances. This means moving away from a reliance on normative data generated from majority populations and the corresponding pursuit of standardized outcomes for all youth. Instead, we need approaches that identify pathways to self-determined success for subgroups of students with disabilities who have similar circumstances and needs (Farmer, Wehmeyer, et al., 2022). In turn, this information can guide idiographic analyses of individual patterns of functioning over time in relation to intervention adaptation and contextual modifications (Cairns et al., 1998; Farmer, 2020).

Person-Oriented Analysis and Special Education Research

How do we facilitate TSAS to tailor universal support to promote the everyday functioning of diverse learners who have been historically marginalized in general education classrooms? First, we need to recognize diversity and intersectionality within minoritized populations, and we need to link differences to distinct developmental processes and pathways (Farmer, 2020). Person-oriented analysis that identifies youth with similar configurations of functioning in school is consistent with dynamic ecological systems and correlated constraints perspectives and can be linked to patterns of functioning over time to facilitate progress monitoring and the identification of intervention leverage points for subgroups of youth (Chen et al., 2020). This requires identifying relevant developmental factors for subtypes of youth, determining how these factors are impacted by intervention, and clarifying how changes in these focal factors contribute to changes in other relevant factors within the developmental system. Second, we need to center special education research as work that is meaningful for the learning and development of all children, not just 15% of the population. By focusing on efforts to tailor intervention within the universal delivery system, we should foster innovation that extends our understanding of developmental processes and the interplay of context and service delivery factors while creating more effective and impactful progress monitoring frameworks. This does not mean subsuming special education research into the general education research structure of the National Center for Education Research. On the contrary, it means recognizing special and general education research as distinct areas of inquiry that should be engaged in high levels of complementary cross talk with an explicit goal of centering the everyday functioning and success of minoritized youth.

The SoLD has much to offer special education. In turn, with the tremendous advances in statistical approaches, the use of technology in education, and the use of artificial intelligence to leverage data in new ways, special education research and service delivery is a frontier that has the potential to yield cutting-edge innovation in education to enhance the experiences and opportunities for success of every student.