Abstract
Recent data indicates the growing diversity rift between student populations and teaching faculty as over 86% of current faculty are White, female, and under 40 years of age. This rift presents challenges to new teachers attempting to meet the needs of diverse students, including the delivery of rigorous academic content to individuals who are emerging bilinguals, designing appropriate supports to address challenging behaviors, and distinguishing cultural/linguistic differences from genuine disability indicators in struggling students. This chapter will review the establishment of the special education system and examine outcomes associated with traditional assessment practices, discuss the conceptualization of disability categories under federal legislation, and offer recommendations teachers can implement to better understand and address learning/behavioral needs in diverse populations.
TopIntroduction
Over the last century, United States (US) school enrollment has become increasingly diverse with significant growth across student populations from non-White backgrounds (e.g., Black, Latinx, Asian/Pacific Islander; U.S. Department of Education, 2020), particularly in the last several decades. Such growth reflects demographic changes in the community as well as society, in general. Similarly, US schools have also seen an increase in emerging bilinguals (EB), with approximately 5 million students identified as EB (National Center for Educational Statistics [NCES], 2019). While multitudes of students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds have experienced positive scholastic outcomes along with societal advancement, critical challenges (e.g., equity in education, access to quality instruction) remain at the forefront of public education (Gargiulo & Bouck, 2020; Harry & Klingner, 2014; Moreno & Gaytán, 2013; Rodríguez, 2008).
As student populations have become increasingly diverse, the racial/ethnic composition of educator faculty continues to be homogeneous, where over 85% of classroom educators and administrators are typically female, White, and under 40 years of age (U.S. Department of Education, 2020). This stark contrast between students and teachers has established a phenomenon known as the diversity rift (Moreno & Gaytán, 2013). The rift effectively presents numerous challenges to educators unfamiliar with the learning/behavioral needs of students from backgrounds different from themselves. In addition to typical difficulties for many diverse populations (e.g., academic progress, language proficiency, social acculturation), numerous concerns continue to receive little to no attention, particularly when working with students identified (or suspected) with disabilities. Such concerns include difficulties in distinguishing learning differences from genuine disability indicators (Hoover, 2009, Moreno & Segurra-Herrera, 2014; Noguera, 2003; Peguero & Shekarkhar, 2011).
In this chapter, we will review the emergence of the special education system and examine outcomes associated with traditional assessment practices. Additionally, we will review the conceptualizations of both specific learning disabilities (SLD) and emotional behavioral disorders under federal legislation. We offer recommendations around core instruction, collaboration, and assessment practices that teachers can implement to better understand and address learning/behavioral needs in diverse populations.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Behavioral Flashpoint: Point in an escalating behavioral event where the teacher can actively make the decision to seek pathways to de-escalate the event without resorting to threats of disciplinary referral or response cost.
Zero Tolerance Policy: Disciplinary policy often employed by school organizations to impose punishment on students for every level of code of conduct infraction. Originally developed to address weapon and contraband infractions, the policy has often expanded to address various types of behavioral infractions from inappropriate language to dress code violations.
Challenging Behaviors: Chronic demonstration of behaviors that may interfere with the child’s education/social experience or present the risk of interfering with the child’s interpersonal/social interactions with their peers and adults.
Soft Disabilities: Disability conditions mostly cognitive in nature, thus not necessarily apparent to the casual eye and typically identified by education evaluation personnel (e.g., school psychologist, educational diagnostician) as opposed to medical professionals.
Disproportionality: Representation of a population group (typically ethnic/racial minority) in a particular disability category that exceeds statistical expectations (i.e., prevalence) for that category, or differs substantially from the representation of others population groups in that category (i.e., overrepresentation, underrepresentation).
Dynamic Assessment: An interactive, process-oriented procedure to measure learning potential that involves assessment, teaching, and reassessment.
Unexplained Learning Failure: Lack of medical, instructional, or psycho-sociological evidence to explain learning difficulties despite delivery of learning supports.
Testing Bias: Tendency of scores on tests to over or underestimate true performance of individuals because they are members of specific groups.
Functional Behavioral Assessment: Investigative process education professionals employ to better understand the demonstration of challenging behaviors with a resulting hypothesis that identifies factors and conditions contributing to the challenging behavior.
Hard Disabilities: Physical conditions typically apparent to the casual eye, such as orthopedic impairment or visual impairments, and involve medical evaluation personnel for diagnosis and treatment.
Aptitude-Achievement Discrepancy (AAD) Model: The use of comparisons of child’s intellectual ability with their academic progress to identify learning disabilities.
Acculturation: Assimilation into the dominant culture.
Nondiscriminatory Evaluation: IDEA principle that requires schools to evaluate students fairly to determine presence of a disability.
Curriculum-Based Measures (CBM): An approach to measuring students’ academic growth that also measures effectiveness of instruction.
Hidden Curriculum: The unwritten set of values, perspectives, and behavioral expectations established within public institutions that perpetuate social framework often reflecting the views of the ethnic/racial majority group.
Diversity Rift: Stark contrast between teacher and students based on ethnic/racial backgrounds, which can lead to several cultural misperceptions, student alienation, and low academic expectations that impede the delivery of high-quality instruction for students from diverse backgrounds.
Response to Intervention (RTI): A multi-tier approach to identifying and supporting students with academic and behavioral needs.
Unconditional Positive Regard: Open demonstration of complete support and acceptance of a student, regardless of background and person points of view. In school settings, the teacher accepts and supports their student, placing no conditions on acceptance, particularly when the student has a history of challenging behaviors.
Confirmation Bias: Tendency to seek, interpret, favor, or recall information in a way that confirms or supports the person’s prior beliefs or values.