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Race, Class, and Disproportionality: Reevaluating the Relationship Between Poverty and Special Education Placement

University of Michigan, School of Education, 4001 SEB Box 1259, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; coconnor{at}umich.edu. Her research interests focus on the racial identity, academic experience, and educational resilience of African American students

Sonia DeLuca Fernandez

Doctoral candidate at the University of Michigan, Center for the Study of Higher and Postsecondary Education, 610 E. University Avenue, 2117 SEB, Ann Arbor, MI 48109; sddeluca{at}umich.edu. Her research interests focus on social justice in higher education, with particular attention to race and the ways in which identity mediates socialization in academe

This article analyzes how a recent National Research Council report (2002) defined the impact of poverty in explaining the overrepresentation of minority students in special education. Echoing the perspective of mainstream special education literature, the report offered a latent theory of compromised development which indicated that minority students are more likely to be poor and that "being" poor heightens their exposure to risk factors that compromise human development and increase the need for special services. We elucidate how this theory oversimplifies the concept of "development" and consequently under-analyzes how the culture and organization of schools situates minority youths as academically and behaviorally deficient and places them at risk for special education placement.

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