Special education for adolescent Latino students with limited formal schooling: Issues, stories, and perceptions of students and their teachers

This study focused on the perceptions and experiences of five Latino high school students with limited formal schooling (LFS) and their teachers after the students had been placed in special education classrooms. A total of five student participants and four teacher participants took part. All of the students had missed multiple years of schooling in their Central American countries of birth and possessed weak literacy skills in Spanish, their first language. Three high schools comprised each of three cases in the study. Each school correlated to a different case because each of the schools had unique characteristics that distinguished it from the other two schools. Three of the teacher participants were special education teachers and one was an ESOL-special education itinerant teacher.; To get a more holistic sense of factors that might have influenced these students' academic progress, the students' experiences in the realms of home, school and community were explored in their home countries and in the United States prior to their placement in special education. Then, factors that seemed to influence the students' and teachers' perceptions of special education as a placement for these students were explored. Finally, the ways in which these students were taught English literacy in the context of their special education classrooms were examined.; Data were gathered through multiple means, including five student participant interviews in Spanish, four teacher interviews, and observations of multiple lessons that demonstrated the teaching of English literacy. Additional data were provided through students' Individual Education Plans and English for Speakers of Other Languages assessment records.; The findings were presented through three within case analyses and a cross-case analysis. Narrative analysis was also used to provide a more in-depth understanding of some of the data. Overall findings revealed that even though students came from different regions in Central America, they shared many similar experiences prior to their placement in special education. The factors that influenced the students' and teachers' perceptions of their placement in special education extended from the academic to the personal, with the teacher-student connection being central to student learning. It was found that students were taught English literacy skills in a range of ways in their special education classrooms. All of the teachers interviewed expressed the desire to collaborate further with their colleagues to bridge a perceived ESOL-special education gap.