General and Special Education Teacher Collaboration Within Two Response to Intervention Models

• In Event: Roundtable Session 7
  In Roundtable Session: Special Education Policies

Abstract

A democratic approach to educational research entails an examination of the processes and motivations behind policy development and implementation. Analyzing the 2004 reauthorization of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which offered schools the option of utilizing Response to Intervention (RtI) as an alternative approach to the identification of students for special education evaluation, reveals that policy supporters were divided into two camps that viewed the role of special and general education collaboration differently. Cultural historical activity theory (CHAT) is used to examine how RtI implementation, and the intersection of other context-specific conditions, may be impacting the ways that general and special educators are working together at two schools. The results hold implications for future approaches to RtI implementation.

Author

• Joyce Melissa Gomez-Najarro, University of Southern California