Who Is Placed in Special Education? Assessing the Longitudinal Profiles of Students at Risk for Identification and the Consequences of Placement

• In Event: Promising Scholarship in Education: Dissertation Fellows and Their Research

Abstract

Though the Education for All Children Act mandating de-segregation for students with disabilities passed in 1974, special and general education largely remain two separate systems (WestEd, 2004). This is problematic given the wealth of research demonstrating myriad benefits to increased inclusion in the general education environment (e.g. Cosier, Causton-Theoharis, & Theoharis 2013). The problem of unequal access to appropriate services prompts one of the most important questions we can ask about our educational system: who is placed into special education, and what happens to them once they are placed? Despite decades of research on this question, consensus is lacking. Many studies fail to account for the dynamic nature of service receipt over time, as well as the hierarchical structure of educational data, which downplays the complexity surrounding identification and ignores what happens following placement. Thus, my dissertation analyzes longitudinal patterns of special education service receipt to explain what makes profiles of students qualitatively different from each other.

Author

• Adrienne D. Woods, University of Michigan