Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine police officer perceptions about persons with intellectual disabilities. Design/methodology/approach – In this study, 188 officers from three police districts in the Southeast USA were surveyed using a modified Social Distance Questionnaire. Findings – Results indicate that the majority of police officers surveyed had little or no training with regard to disabilities and that most are willing to interact socially with individuals with intellectual disabilities. Further, this study found that female officers had significantly greater positive attitudes toward individuals with intellectual disabilities than male respondents and that white respondents were more knowledgeable about these individuals than those from minority backgrounds. Research limitations/implications – While these results are significant, it should be noted that the number of female and minority participants was relatively low. Practical implications – The paper includes recommendations for professional development for police officer and criminal justice training programs. Social implications – As individuals with developmental and intellectual disabilities are increasingly integrated into society, their vulnerability to mishandling by the criminal justice system and police officers intensifies. This paper allows police officers and those within the field of criminal justice an opportunity to examine perceptions as they seek to understand how police and general societal perceptions impact the way that people interact with persons with intellectual disabilities. Originality/value – This paper fulfills a need to examine attitudes of police officers toward citizens with intellectual disabilities in the communities in which they live. These attitudes often affect the way that police officers interact with citizens and identify additional training needs to better prepare officers for diverse individuals they may will encounter.

This article examines research findings from a study of Latina/o farmworker migrant students who have succeeded in gaining access to a college education at a large southern university. Findings reveal students with a strong Latina/o or bicultural identity who attend college seeking a better life, a career path, or to make their family proud. Parents and other family members are the paramount influence in the students' decision to attend college. Specific strategies to help these students pursue a higher education degree are presented.Resumen: Este manuscrito examina hallazgos de investigación en un estudio de estudiantes migratorios trabajadores agricultores latinas/os que han tenido éxito en obtener acceso a educación universitaria en una universidad grande del sur. Los hallazgos revelaron estudiantes con una identidad bicultural o latina fuerte, los cuales asistían a la universidad en busca de una vida mejor, una carrera profesional, o para darle orgullo a su familia. Padres y otros miembros familiares son la influencia fundamental en la decisión de los estudiantes para asistir a la universidad. Estrategias específicas para ayudar a estos estudiantes a obtener su grado académico superior se presentan.

In this article, the authors describe a systematic effort by a department of special education to integrate technology into teaching through a one-to-one laptop initiative and to examine preservice teachers' perceptions concerning their experiences with the initiative. The authors investigate beliefs about preservice teachers' proficiency in using technology for teaching, their attitudes toward the use of technology for teaching, and their perceptions of the integration of instructional technology practices by faculty across three semesters using both qualitative and quantitative methods. Preservice teachers' perceptions of their ability to integrate technology in their teaching increased whereas their attitudes toward integrating technology remained consistently high across program semesters. They believed that faculty effectively integrated and modeled the use of technology in their instruction. Implications of the results are discussed.

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This discussion describes a program that was developed to provide an opportunity for children of farm workers to accrue academic credit toward graduation. It was also designed to include intense interaction between the students and educators. This program illustrates how multicultural awareness can be developed within a relatively short period of time through immersion in experiences and by providing appropriate incentives. Se describe un programa que se desarrolló para dar una oportunidad a los hijos de agricultores para ganar créditos académicos para graduarse. También lo diseñaron para incluir interación intensa entre estudiantes y educadores. Este programa muestra como se puede desarrollar un conocimiento multicultural en relativamente muy poco tiempo a través de la inmersión en experiencias y dando incentivos apropriados.

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Special education is under attack from outside the profession and is experiencing considerable dissention from inside as well. The challenges from outside are concerned with costs and accountability. Cost comparisons with other education services have led some to argue that the social benefits do not justify the costs of special education services (Dillon, 1994; Massachusetts Association of School Superintendents, 1997). Dissention inside the profession involves longstanding differences in perspective regarding fully integrated versus pull-out service delivery models (Fuchs & Fuchs, 1995; Shanker, 1994) and, increasingly, differences among researchers about the nature and representation of knowledge. Ethical issues lurk sometimes subtly behind and sometimes boldly in front of professional challenges in special education interventions, policies, research, and teacher education. Special educators rely on a complex foundation of justifying reasons for what they do, and how they do it. Everything from how disability is defined to the educational objectives and the knowledge privileged as foundational for practice reflects a priori considerations saturated with values and cultural meaning. It is surprising that a field so replete with such complexities of interests has devoted so little attention to the study and development of applied ethics. In a survey of doctoral programs in special education in 1995 only one required a course in ethics, although most said that ethics content was embedded in the content of different seminars (Paul, Kane, and Kane, 1996). A few respondents suggested that content in ethics was not needed in a Ph.D. program in special education. We believe that lessons learned in professional psychology with respect to the study of ethics are instructive for special educators. Increasingly, over the past three decades, doctoral programs in psychology have required courses in ethics because the approach of embedding ethics content lacked a foundational perspective, lacked continuity, and, for teaching purposes, relied too much on ethical issues emerging randomly in class discussions and internships. Special education teachers, researchers, teacher educators, and policy-makers need more education and training in ethics to be able to address current moral dilemmas in assessment, instruction, curriculum, work with families, instructional competence, philosophy of service delivery, funding, and research. The articulation and application of ethical theory needed to support practice and policy development are critical to the future of special education.