On Cultural Politics in Special Education: Is Much of It Justifiable?

Abstract

This article examines the nature of cultural politics in special education, specifically conceptual and methodological issues, as well as political implications related to minority disproportionate representation in disability identification rates. The implication of cultural politics is a focus on the hypothesis that minority disproportionate representation of minorities in special education is definitely a result of racial discrimination, accompanied by criticism of recently contested research suggesting their underrepresentation after controlling for confounds. Cultural politics has practical consequences, such as recently proposed policy changes that extract scarce sources from the education of students already identified as having disabilities. Special education is urged to focus on effective instruction and on three things in addressing disproportionality: (a) close adherence to facts and the best corroborating evidence; (b) explanations and theories that are testable, confirmable, and refutable on the basis of reliable data; and (c) clear and rational arguments that can be followed by policy makers. Carefully designed research to further explore this issue should recognize that (a) disproportionality is, by definition, a quantitative phenomenon and (b) replication and refinement of recent studies are needed.

Divergent Discourse in Disproportionality Research: A Response to Kauffman and Anastasiou (2019)

“…The authors asked if cultural politics, as they defined it, is justifiable. We provide arguments within our four identified points of discussion that indicate, without oversimplifying issues surrounding disproportionality, a resounding yes cultural politics, as defined by Kauffman and Anastasiou (2019) are absolutely justifiable. These points of discussion are the roles of (a) divergent ideologies; (b) access and advantage; (c) adult, adolescent, and child behavior; and (d) methodology.…”

“…Kauffman and Anastasiou (2019) urges special education scholars to focus on the following when addressing disproportionality: “(a) close adherence to facts and the best corroborating evidence; (b) explanations and theories that are testable, confirmable, and refutable on the basis of reliable data; and (c) clear and rational arguments that can be followed by policy makers” (p. 2). These admonishments are honorable and well received, however, while reading Kauffman and Anastasiou’s (2019) several inconsistencies were identified with an overwhelming amount of current research findings, comparisons among populations from different historical contexts, and one-sided arguments. Yet, the most surprising piece was the lack of proposed solutions to the challenges of under- and overrepresentation for CLD students who are affected by the problem of disproportionality every day.…”

“…Kauffman and Anastasiou (2019) define cultural politics as the “winning of arguments by making culture the central consideration in agenda-setting and strategy in education” (p. 4). The authors asked if cultural politics, as they defined it, is justifiable.…”

“…Consistent with Kauffman and Anastasiou (2019), it is the agenda of special educators to identify and implement effective practices for improving outcomes for students with disabilities. Moreover, our strategy should include implementation of IDEA (2004) with fidelity—however, it is within the spirit of the federal law that we find the imperative to be critical in identification practices.…”

“…For example, Black students have been underidentified as at-risk of deaf-blindness, hearing impairment, orthopedic impairment, and visual impairment (USDOE, 2017b). We would expect that if identification is due to the reasons outlined by Kauffman and Anastasiou (2019), these students would be disproportionally represented in all categories and not aligned on subjective and objective identification processes.…”