Are Students of Color Being Over- or Under-identified as Having Disabilities as they Attend U.S. Schools?

Paul Morgan, Penn State University

September 20th, 4-5pm, Commons 329

Federal special education legislation and regulations require U.S. schools to monitor for significant disproportionality in the extent to which students of color are identified as having disabilities.  Yet evidence for the directionality of these disparities using student-level data has, until recently, been lacking.  I survey new empirical findings from a series of analyses of student-level, nationally representative datasets designed to evaluate whether the over-representation of students of color in special education is explained by over-identification based on race or ethnicity.  Collectively, and contrary to federal legislation and policy, this new evidence suggests that students of color are less likely to be identified as having disabilities while attending U.S. schools than similarly situated white or English-speaking students.  Implications of these findings are discussed.

Thank you to the Office of the Dean of CAHSS, the Office of the Vice President for Research, and the Center for Social Science Scholarship for their support of the seminar series.  

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