We reviewed the research on professional development (PD) for inclusive education between 2000 and 2009 to answer three questions: (a) How is inclusive education defined in PD research? (b) How is PD for inclusive education studied? (c) How is teacher learning examined in PD research for inclusive education? Systematic procedures were used to identify relevant research and analyze the target studies. We found that most PD research for inclusive education utilized a unitary approach toward difference and exclusion and that teacher learning for inclusive education is undertheorized. We recommend using an intersectional approach to understand difference and exclusion and examining boundary practices to examine teacher learning for inclusive education.

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In this article, Federico R. Waitoller and Kathleen A. King Thorius extend recent discussions on culturally sustaining pedagogy (CSP) in order to explicitly account for student dis/ability. The authors engage in this work as part of an inclusive education agenda. Toward this aim, they discuss how CSP and universal design for learning will benefit from cross-pollination and then conclude by suggesting interdisciplinary dialogue as a means to building emancipatory pedagogies that attend to intersecting markers of difference (e.g., dis/ability, class, gender, race, language, and ethnicity).

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The authors reviewed the overrepresentation research published between 1968 and 2006 to answer two questions: (a) What are the characteristics of overrepresentation studies? (b) How do studies frame the problem? Systematic procedures were used to search four international databases, and criteria were applied to identify relevant studies. Findings suggest that overrepresentation research has been mostly published in special education journals, the number of studies has increased over time (particularly since 2000), most overrepresentation research focused on the learning disabilities category and on African Americans, and most studies used quantitative designs. Overrepresentation research has been framed in three ways: a sociodemographic model in which characteristics of individuals and contexts are examined, a critical perspective in which power issues related to race are addressed, and a framework that examines the role of various professional practices in the creation and maintenance of overrepresentation . Implications for research, practice, and policy are discussed.