Whiteness and Color-Evasive Practices in the Overidentification of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Students

Abstract

This qualitative study aims to demonstrate that the issue of overidentification of CLD students in special Education is due to practices of whiteness and color-evasiveness, as well as the lack of training among school psychologists. The study consists of the interviews of 5 school psychologists. The study examines their background, experience in evaluating CLD students, and training to work with the CLD population. The school psychologist's answers were analyzed through the framework of whiteness and color-evasiveness to answer two research questions. By analyzing the participants’ responses, results from this study demonstrated how different policies and practices interconnect to legally segregate CLD students in special education as they are perceived as deficient due to biased thinking and color-evasive approaches to reinforce concepts of whiteness. Results also showed that, although policies have been created to address the problem of overrepresentation, school psychologists, who are at the root of the problem, have not been trained to work with the CLD population in their programs and in their workplace.