Black Students and Race Dynamics in the Special Education Pre-referral Team Process

Abstract

Although decades of quantitative research has demonstrated the over-representation of Black students (ORB) in special education (SPED), some recent quantitative researchers created controversy in the field by declaring that Black students were under-represented in SPED. Since that time, there has been a call for both qualitative studies and studies that explicitly use theory to guide their research design/ data analysis to explore ORB in SPED (Cruz & Rodl, 2018). The present study is an exploratory, phenomenological, qualitative study that uses Critical Race Theory (CRT) to explore how the early stages of the SPED referral process may or may not contribute to ORB in SPED. Four SPED pre-referral meetings (PRMs) were recorded and coded for content. Eight teachers who had referred students to PRMs (4 Black referred students and 4 white) completed surveys related to the extent they believed their referred students needed SPED services and/or needed to be educated outside the general education setting. Results indicated Black students were found to be referred to PRMs early in the school year, at a younger age, and with no previous history of PRMs compared to white students. Additionally, several differences were found in the way educators spoke about their Black and white students. There was far less discussion about how SPED services would be useful for Black students’ futures, more frequent and more negative discussion about relational stress with Black students, more “back-handed” comments about Black students’ strengths, and less talk about non-SPED interventions that could be utilized to help Black students compared to white students. The findings of this study are discussed in relationship to several CRT tenets. Related recommendations for school psychologists are also provided.