Race, Disability, and Policy: Examining the Boundaries of Legal Compliance When Pursuing Equity in Education

• In Event: 2451 - Section on Organizations, Occupations, and Work Refereed Roundtables (1 hour)
  In Refereed Roundtable 60min: Table 11. Law and Work

Abstract

In this paper we explore how the single most influential piece of legislation affecting students with disabilities within schools across the United States—the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), has not produced equitable outcomes for racially diverse learners in varied contexts. We trace how the civil rights intent of IDEA unfolds and unravels when educators use the legislation to address racialized educational disparities. Using the insights of legal endogeneity theory (Edelman, 2106) and a mixed methods approach, we ask the following questions: What school district contextual factors are associated with a federal citation through IDEA for racial disproportionality in special education? And, how and in what ways do sociocultural, historical, and contextual factors affect stakeholders’ responses to receiving and addressing a citation for disproportionality? We relied upon sequence data that was derived from an Event History Analysis (EHA) of district level data in one northeastern state and interview data that was derived from semi structured interviews with a diverse set of educational stakeholders in one suburban school district to answer the questions. The sequence data analysis indicates that numerous suburban districts have been multiply cited for disproportionality from 2004-2011 and that these districts, as compared to the average suburban school district in the state, are more racially and linguistically diverse; have higher poverty, student enrollment and, per pupil expenditure rates; and have lower levels of achievement and attendance rates, while also exhibiting high suspension rates. Interview data revealed that educator’s seemingly benign acts of compliance with IDEA did not adequately address disproportionality and unintentionally justified racial inequities under the guise of compliance with civil rights mandates. Collectively, the findings illustrate how policy compliance alone cannot contend with the sociological complexity of how race operates in society and how it gains meaning through social interactions and structures within organizations.

Authors

• Catherine Kramarczuk Voulgarides, City Univeristy New York (CUNY)-Hunter College

• Alexandra Aylward, New York University

• Adai Tefera, Virginia Commonwealth University

• Alfredo J. Artiles, Arizona State University