| The field of school psychology has long espoused the value of parental participation in the special education decision making process. Not only is the value of parental participation reflected in special education theory, it is also reflected in federal law, which mandates that parents be treated as equal members in the IEP process. The extant research suggests that a number of factors have the potential to impact the quality and quantity of parental participation in the special education process. Among these factors are race, income, and the nature of a child's disabling condition (Harry, 1995; Kalyanpur et al., 2000; Leyser & Cole, 1984). Theorists have suggested that one of the reasons for these disparities in parent participation is the manner in which professionals engage with different groups of parents (Dettmer, Dyck, & Thurston, 1999; Ortiz & Flanagan, 2002). The current study sought to examine parents' perceptions of professional behavior in special education meetings. The primary goal was to determine which family characteristics impacted the degree to which parents perceived professionals as engaging in practices that are thought to foster participation. A convenience sample of 316 parents whose children were receiving special education services in a suburban Philadelphia school district was surveyed. Participants were asked to provide demographic information about their families and respond to a scale designed to measure their perceptions of staff's behavior in their child's most recent IEP meeting. Results indicated that several factors including parents' educational attainment, marital status, child's disability, and satisfaction with special education services impacted the degree to which parents perceived professionals as engaging in practices that fostered parent participation. Results also indicated that, while a number of factors appeared to impact parents' perceptions of professional behavior, as a whole, parents rated their experiences in special education meetings quite positively. |
