Students with emotional/behavioral disorders are increasingly included in general education settings, requiring their special educators to coordinate with other educators. Yet, research provides limited insights into their interactions with other educators. Thus, we qualitatively examined how special educators experienced and navigated interactions with other educators when serving students with emotional/behavioral disabilities in self-contained classes that were actively moving students into more inclusive placements. Participants emphasized that their work was interdependent with others; they relied on others for work essential to meeting students’ needs. They shared that interactions were shaped by conceptions of students’ needs, the division of responsibilities, and resources. They experienced interactions on a continuum from alignment to misalignment; when experiencing alignment, they felt supported to meet student needs, whereas they felt misalignment challenged those efforts. Participants described using varied strategies to promote alignment. Results have implications for coordinating teachers’ efforts to serve students with emotional/behavioral disabilities.
Transition coordinators are key players in the delivery of high-quality transition services, but little is known about how they interpret and enact their roles. This qualitative study examined how transition coordinators conceptualize their role and the factors that shape their effectiveness. Emergent themes revealed that transition coordinators broadly conceptualized their role as ambiguous, autonomous, evolving, and relational. They identified the responsibilities and initiatives they prioritized to drive structural and cultural change. Participants further identified relational and logistical factors that affected implementation of transition practices, highlighting the importance of buy-in from stakeholders. Clearly defined and well-supported roles may help transition coordinators leverage their specialized knowledge to ensure students with disabilities are prepared to pursue self-determined life goals.
Working conditions may be an important lever to support special educators’ reading instruction for students with emotional and behavioral disorders (EBD). Thus, we explored how working conditions relate to the quality of special educators’ reading instruction in upper-elementary, self-contained classes for students with EBD. Using mixed methods to examine video observations of reading instruction and varied data sources on working conditions, we found that special educators who provided stronger instruction had a partner coleading their program, and consistent paraprofessionals, with time and support for training. Partners and paraprofessionals, together, protected special educators’ instruction time. Other conditions (i.e., material resources, role differentiation, role conceptions, planning time) emerged as potentially important, but evidence was less robust. Results indicate partners and paraprofessionals may be important forms of collegial support. These findings have important implications for improving the quality of instruction in self-contained settings for students with EBD.
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