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Teacher Perceptions Of Disproportionality Of Minorities In Special Education, Kristy Henry Park

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The intent of this study was to determine if special education teachers had certain perceptions regarding the disproportionate amount of minorities in special education classes. I examined special education teachers' awareness of the disproportionality, their causal theories, and the effectiveness of Response to Intervention (RTI) to regulate disproportionality. I implemented three different data collection methods to measure the teachers' perceptions: an initial face-to-face interview session, a written survey, and additional interview questioning. Participants in the study included 11 special education teachers from three middle schools in Northern Georgia. Ten of the 11 teachers admitted awareness of the problem of disproportionality, …