Abstract
Statement of Problem
Racial and ethnic disparities persist despite IDEA 2004’s critical supports and legal safeguards. Efforts to understand racial and ethnic disparities in special education must include an examination of the influence of teacher’s critical awareness of their own as well as their students’ racial, ethnic, and cultural identities. This study is designed to inform this critical work. With its emphasis on individual teacher awareness and characteristics that influence school differences, the study can ultimately help federal lawmakers examine the utility of current special education law in redressing racial and ethnic disparities and assist school districts in working to help schools address them.
Sources of Data
Data sources included text from IDEA 2004, NCLB, 2001, and memory data - where personal experiences were recollected in the forms of field notes that culminated to in process memos.
Conclusions Reached
The most important conclusion deduced from the patterns derived from the analysis of the data was that it is my own knowledge and awareness of my own and my students’ unique personal identity, culture, and social experiences that makes me a highly qualified teacher. This is something that the research has neglected in the search for answers to the lingering racial disparity phenomenon.