A sociocultural process of teacher assessment and intervention for African-American and Hispanic students at risk for special education

This qualitative study examined how 23 teachers made prereferral assessment and intervention decisions for African American and Hispanic students with persistent learning difficulties. In the school district where this study took place, there had been a continual overrepresentation of these populations in special education.;The literature suggests that this district's situation is not unique. The overrepresentation of minority students in special education was first examined in the 1960s and remains a complex problem in the United States today (Dunn, 1968; National Research Council, 2002).;The literature also suggests that it is important to analyze the role of teachers when examining minority overrepresentation. This is because teachers make decisions that largely influence a student's special education placement. Thus, my research questions are: (1) How do these teachers describe how they assess and use intervention strategies during the prereferral process for African American or Hispanic students with persistent academic or behavioral difficulties? (2) What reasons do teachers give for their assessments and interventions that they use during the prereferral process for these students?;I used qualitative methods to interview and analyze these teachers' data. Sociocultural theory, with particular attention to cultural and linguistic differences, provided the framework through which I analyzed and interpreted the prereferral decisions of the teachers in my study. I reviewed the research literature on minority student learning and prereferral assessment and intervention; this literature helped me to understand these teachers' responses within the context of a larger body of research.;This study found that all of these teachers use an assets-based, sociocultural approach in the prereferral process and that they try hard to distinguish cultural, linguistic, or other differences from a disability. Despite this approach, this study suggests that resource problems in regular education contribute to many of these teachers' decisions to refer students to special education. These teachers stated that resource problems affect their ability to provide appropriate interventions for students and contribute to minority overrepresentation in special education in this district. These teachers state they use special education as a default service when more appropriate resources for addressing student needs are inaccessible, inadequate, or unavailable.