When Policy and Privilege Collide: Resources, Race, and Disability in Suburbia

• In Event: School Discipline and School Choice: Racial Inequities Within Neoliberal Policy Contexts

Abstract

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) has guided the delivery of special education services in the United States for over 40 years. Through legislative mandates, IDEA provides a significant amount of power to parents to influence school practices. This paper ethnographically explores how racially disproportionate outcomes in one suburban school district in a northeastern state relates to IDEA, parental power, educational resources, racial ideology, and the persistence of racial inequities in special education. The data analysis reveals that parents who have significant social and cultural capital garner resources that shift school district personnel’s time and attention away from equity concerns, which inadvertently sustain inequities in the local context.

Author

• Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, Touro College