Rights Versus Rights: Compliance and Commitment for Movements to Less Segregated Environments

• In Event: 68.061 - Roundtable Session 30
  In Roundtable Session: 68.061-7 - Curriculum as Inclusive Practice

Abstract

Since 2010, an ongoing university based professional development has provided support to Special Education reform in a large school district. The reform is intended to bring our large urban school district into compliance with IDEA. After six years of the reform, we conducted research on “successful” moves of children from self-contained classrooms into less restrictive environments. This paper analyzes interview transcript data exploring the processes implemented at school sites to facilitate this transition. Drawing from a framework of critical inclusivity (Schlessinger & author, 2015), we analyze which educators are involved in the transition process; and how educators identify “successful” moves in order to demonstrate how shifts in the conceptualization of special education services are informed by administrator and teacher decision-making.

Authors

• Katherine Newhouse, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Dahlia Hamza Constantine, Teachers College, Columbia University

• Jenna Kamrass Morvay, Miami University - Oxford

• Celia J. Oyler, Teachers College, Columbia University