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Distinguishing Disability: Parents, Privilege, and Special Education
Students in special education programs can have widely divergent experiences. For some, special education amounts to a dumping ground where schools unload their problem students, while for others, it provides access to services and accommodations that drastically improve chances of succeeding in school and beyond. Distinguishing Disability argues that this inequity in treatment is directly linked to the disparity in resources possessed by the students’ parents.
Since the mid-1970s, federal law has empowered parents of public school children to intervene in virtually every aspect of the decision making involved in special education. However, Colin Ong-Dean reveals that this power is generally available only to those parents with the money, educational background, and confidence needed to make effective claims about their children’s disabilities and related needs. Ong-Dean documents this class divide by examining a wealth of evidence, including historic rates of learning disability diagnosis, court decisions, and advice literature for parents of disabled children. In an era of expanding special education enrollment, Distinguishing Disability is a timely analysis of the way this expansion has created new kinds of inequality.
Since the mid-1970s, federal law has empowered parents of public school children to intervene in virtually every aspect of the decision making involved in special education. However, Colin Ong-Dean reveals that this power is generally available only to those parents with the money, educational background, and confidence needed to make effective claims about their children’s disabilities and related needs. Ong-Dean documents this class divide by examining a wealth of evidence, including historic rates of learning disability diagnosis, court decisions, and advice literature for parents of disabled children. In an era of expanding special education enrollment, Distinguishing Disability is a timely analysis of the way this expansion has created new kinds of inequality.
203 pages, Paperback
First published April 30, 2009
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July 26, 2013
I'm torn on this one, since Colin Ong-Dean is a colleague and its bad form to rip into someone's dissertation. That said, while this book ticks off all the boxes of a good scholarly work (surveys, data, theories, results), it doesn't really say anything surprising or novel. Ong-Dean proposes that parents with a high degree of 'cultural capital'
(wealthy, educated, white) are better able to navigate the special education system. Unsurprisingly, that turns out to be correct.
Unfortunately, the work doesn't go much beyond that. I only have the slightest idea of what an Individualized Educational Program entails. The most interesting part is in Chapter 3, when Ong-Dean sketches out a "high road to disability" that elites can use to aid their children, and a "low road to disability" used by institutions to control and discipline problem children. Unfortunately, he doesn't go much beyond that.
I see scholarship as a work of excavation and translation. This isn't a bad book, per se, but it's very fragmentary. The other side of the story, the creation and maintenance of disabilities by an expert bureaucracy, is treated as a blank canvas against which the drama of parents happens. This is a major flaw in the work.
(wealthy, educated, white) are better able to navigate the special education system. Unsurprisingly, that turns out to be correct.
Unfortunately, the work doesn't go much beyond that. I only have the slightest idea of what an Individualized Educational Program entails. The most interesting part is in Chapter 3, when Ong-Dean sketches out a "high road to disability" that elites can use to aid their children, and a "low road to disability" used by institutions to control and discipline problem children. Unfortunately, he doesn't go much beyond that.
I see scholarship as a work of excavation and translation. This isn't a bad book, per se, but it's very fragmentary. The other side of the story, the creation and maintenance of disabilities by an expert bureaucracy, is treated as a blank canvas against which the drama of parents happens. This is a major flaw in the work.
Displaying 1 of 1 review