Jones, JanineLee, Lisa Hyesun2021-10-292021-10-292021-10-292021Lee_washington_0250E_23440.pdfhttp://hdl.handle.net/1773/48016Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Washington, 2021For more than half a century, research on the disproportionate representation of ethnic and racial minority students in special education has redefined our understanding and pursuit of educational equity. Primarily focusing on overrepresentation and segregation of students from minority backgrounds, disproportionality has been raised as a complex and controversial issue, with far-reaching implications across school psychology literature, policy, practice, and law. Since the 1960s, the body of literature on disproportionality has lacked consensus on the determinants, consequences, and appropriate responses to address disproportionality and its inordinately negative outcomes for Black and Brown students of color. Against this backdrop of disproportionality, school psychologists have grappled with the paradox of conferring educational opportunity and educational harm via special education identification. Whereas identification for special education services provides access to individualized educational services and programming, disproportionate identification has been implicated in widening and sustaining achievement and opportunity gaps over time. Moreover, educational policies and special education laws seem to create a “double bind,” obligating states to identify all students eligible for special education services while simultaneously posing financial penalties for disproportionate identification by race or ethnicity (Sullivan & Osher, 2019). Confronted with these realities, this study sought to disentangle the many interpretations of disproportionality research and its theoretical, legal, and practical implications for school psychologists. The literature review and data analysis specifically investigated Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) as a means of identifying and addressing significant disproportionalities in special education. The first research question explored the extent to which racial or ethnic minority students disproportionately represented in special education. In order to understand the state of special education disproportionalities on a national scale, section 618 IDEIA data was disaggregated to compute risk ratios for under- or over-representation among special education eligibility determinations. The second research question investigated the extent to which compliance with special education regulations was predicted by variables purported to influence disproportionate outcomes among students of color, such as representativeness of the population receiving special education services, inclusion in general education settings, or exclusionary discipline practices. Results, limitations, and future directions are included following the interpretation of results, adding to the literature on special education disproportionality research and equitable school psychology practice.application/pdfen-USCC BY-NC-NDEducational psychologyEducation - SeattleThesis