Chinn, P.C., & Hughes, S. (1987). Representation of minority students in special education classes. Remedial and Special Education, 8, 41-46.
Artiles, A.J., & Trent, S.C. (1994). Overrepresentation of minority students in special education: A continuing debate. The Journal of Special Education, 27, 410-437.
U.S. Department of Education. (1994). Fall 1992 elementary and secondary school civil rights compliance report: Projections. Washington, D.C.: Office of Civil Rights.
Harry, B., & Andersen, M.G. (1994). The disproportionate placement of African American males in special education programs: A critique of the process. The Journal of Negro Education, 63, 602-620.
Hilliard, A.G. (1997). SBA: The reawakening of the African mind. Gainesville, FL: Makare.
Morrison, P., White, S.H., & Feuer, M.J. (1996). The use of IQ tests in special education decision making and planning. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.
Burnette, J. (1998). Reducing the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education. (Report No. E566). Reston, VA: ERIC Clearinghouse on Disabilities and Gifted Education. (ERIC Document Reproduction Service No. ED417501)
Patton, J. (1998). The disproportionate representation of African Americans in special education: Looking behind the curtain for understanding and solution. The Journal of Special Education, 32(1), 25-31.
Agbenyega, S., & Jiggetts, J. (1999). Minority children and their over-representation in special education. Education, 119, 619-633.
Oswald, D.P., Coutinho, M.J., Best, A.M., & Singh, N.N. (1999). Ethnic representation in special education: The influence of school-related economic and demographic variables. The Journal of Special Education, 32, 194-195.
U.S. Department of Education. (2000). Fall 1998 elementary and secondary school civil rights compliance report: Projections. Washington, D.C.: Office of Civil Rights.
Artiles, A.J., Harry, B., Reschly, D., & Chinn, P. (2002). Placement of students of color in special education: A critical overview. Multicultural Perspectives, 4, 3-10.
Rogers, R. (2003). A critical discourse analysis of the special education referral process: A case study. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 24(2), 139-158.
Kearns, T., Ford, L., & Linney, J.A. (2005, Fall). African American student representation in special education programs. The Journal of Negro Education, 74(4), 297-310.
- The disproportional presence of African-Americans on referral lists and in special education programs has been documented by an assortment of studies over the past 25 years (see the 14 above-listed studies).
- Drawing from the work of Artiles and Trent (2000) and Artiles, Harry, Reschly, and Chinn (2002), Rueda and Windmuller (2006) observe that African-American, Chicano/Latino, Native-American, and various subgroups of Asian-American students are “The most common groups involved in overrepresentation” (p. 99).
Overrepresentation in Canada:
Wright, E.N. (1971). Programme placement related to selected countries of birth and selected languages (Report No. 99). Toronto, ON: Toronto Board of Education, Research Services.
Deosaran, R.A. (1976). The 1975 every student survey: Program placement related to selected countries of birth and selected languages (Report No. 140). Toronto, ON: Toronto Board of Education, Research Services.
Wright, E.N., & Tsuji, G.K. (1984). The grade nine student survey: Fall 1983 (Report #174). Toronto, ON: Toronto Board of Education, Research Services.
Cheng, M., Tsuji, G., Yau, M., & Ziegler, S. (1987). The every secondary student survey: Fall 1987 (Report No. 191). Toronto, ON: Toronto Board of Education, Research Services.
Cheng, M., Yau, M., & Ziegler, S. (1993). The 1991 every secondary student survey. Part 3: Program level and student achievement (Report No. 205). Toronto, ON: Toronto Board of Education, Research Services.
Dei, G. (1996). Anti-racism education: Theory and practice. Halifax, NS: Fernwood Publishing.
Brathwaite, K.S., & James, C.E. (1996). Assessing the educational experiences of African Canadians. In K.S. Brathwaite & C.E. James (Eds.), Educating African Canadians (pp. 13-31). Toronto, ON: James Lorimer & Company Ltd., Publishers.
African Canadian Legal Council. (2007). Condition critical: Anti-Black racism and the imperative for action: Report to the committee on elimination of racial discrimination, 70th session, Geneva (Review of Canada’s Seventeenth and Eighteenth Periodic Reports under the International Convention on the Elimination of All forms of Discrimination, February 20th and 21st, 2007). Retrieved November 1 2009 from http://www2.ohchr.org/english/bodies/cerd/docs/ngos/aclc.pdf
- While the issue of overrepresentation in special education programs has been voiced by some Canadian writers/studies (see the 8 above-listed sources), it is an under-researched area.
Underrepresentation in the United States:
Maker, C.J. (1996). Identification of gifted minority students: A national problem needs changes and a promising solution. Gifted Child Quarterly, 40(1), 41-50.
Ford, D.Y. (1998). The underrepresentation of minority students in gifted education: Problems and promises in recruitment and retention. The Journal of Special Education, 32(1), 4-14.
Daniels, V.I. (1998). Minority students in gifted and special education programs. The Journal of Special Education, 32(1), 1-43.
Huff, R.E., Houskamp, B.M., Watkins, A.V., Stanton, M., & Tavegia, G. (2005). The experiences of parents of gifted African American children: A phenomenological study. Roeper Review, 27(4), 215-221.
- Numerous researchers have raised questions about the underrepresentation of minoritized students in gifted programs (see the 4 above-listed sources). In 1996, Maker observed, “certain cultural, ethnic, and linguistic minority students continue to be underrepresented in special [gifted] programs” (p. 1). According to Daniels (1998), “Inequities in education perpetuate disproportionality” and “disproportionate minority representation in gifted and special education programs” stem from such social processes as special education knowledge production (p. 1). A more recent phenomenological study of parents of gifted African-American students relayed a sense of frustration expressed by parents who felt that school programs lacked cultural sensitivity and observed a degree of elusiveness in the gifted identification procedure (Huff, Houskamp, Watkins, Stanton, & Tavegia, 2005).
