Teacher Referrals to Special Education

TEACHER REFERRAL OF CULTURALLY AND LINGUISTICALLY DIVERSE

STUDENTS TO SPECIAL EDUCATION: IS THERE A BIAS?

This thesis examines the existing literature on teacher referral of culturally and linguistically diverse students to special education, documenting that there is indeed a tendency for classroom teachers to disproportionately and inappropriately refer culturally and linguistically diverse students to special education services. The literature on the consequences of inappropriate referral to culturally and linguistically diverse students is also examined.

The reviewed studies indicated that these students can suffer from several psychoemotional and psychosocial consequences as a result of inappropriate referral. These consequences include: stigmatization, discrimination, low self-esteem, feelings of inferiority and several other negative experiences. The thesis also examined the literature on strategies and techniques that can be used to remediate the problem of inappropriate referral. In this regard, the review of this literature revealed that numerous strategies have been suggested and implemented to reduce and/or eliminate the problem of inappropriate referral.

The final section of the thesis formulates a series of conclusions about the problem of inappropriate referral based on the examined literature. The section then presents a discussion of the implications of findings uncovered through the literature review and offers a series of solution re

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one of which was the "Schools without Failure" Project which provided students, parents, teachers, and administrators with a positive model of behavioral interventions stressing several important variables. These variables were: individual responsibility for behavior; the Instructional Support Program which serviced elementary and middle school teachers and develops skills in informal diagnosis, evaluation, teaching strategies, classroom management, and individualization; and the Parent Information/Assistance Resource Project which provided information and complaint processes to parents of special needs students. Fuchs (1987) discussed another early implementation of a program designed to reduce the problem of inappropriate referral of culturally and linguistically diverse students to special education. This program, the Mainstream Assistance Team (MAT) Project, was a three-year program designed to develop, implement, and validate a prereferral intervention model with nonhandicapped difficult-to-teach students. Prereferral assessment and intervention was said to be necessary due to the increasing numbers of mildly handicapped students enrolled in special education, the increasing frequency of teacher referrals for student eval

Category: Psychology - T