The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) of 1975 has made a profound impact on millions of children with disabilities who now enjoy their right to a free appropriate public education (FAPE). It is the goal of national policy, endorsed by Congress, to ensure equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities. With the enactment of IDEA, it ensures that all children, who participate in special education programs, have equal access to education. However, since IDEA's inception, a disproportionate number of African Americans children have been placed, or rather, misplaced in special education programs. African American students are three times more likely than Whites to be placed into categories as needing services in special education programs, making them subject to less demanding schoolwork, to more restrictive classrooms, and to isolation from their peers. For the purpose of this study, the goals were (a) to determine if there is disproportional representation of Black students and male students in the three categories of Educable Mentally Handicapped, Emotionally Handicapped, and Specific Learning Disabled and (b) to address whether the factors school districts' socioeconomic status, minority rate, and racial composition of instructional and administrative staff predict the representation of Black students and male students who participate in special education programs. A quantitative method, including the three disproportionality calculation methods of Composition Index (CI), Risk Index (RI), and Odds Ratio (OR), was employed to respond to the six research questions and test six corresponding null hypotheses. Sixty-seven school districts in the State of Florida were identified for data collection and analysis. / The enrollment data for the calculations covered AY 2005- 2009. Critical Race Theory (CRT) served as the lens through which to analyze the findings and discus the implications therein. It is clear that the problem of disproportionate representation is complex and the resolution to the problem is not an easy one. This study found that there was a relationship between the representation of Black students and male students in special education programs and the predictor variables. Statistical analyses revealed that socioeconomic status of the school district, minority rate, and racial composition of instructional and administrative staff predicted the disproportional representation. Critical Race Theory, which served as a methodological framework was employed to help in examining and challenging the manner in which race and racism clearly impacts practices and procedures in the special education referral process. CRT utilized the social construction of race and the role it plays in the education policies that affect minorities. As with any intellectual movement, CRT builds its scholarship upon certain theoretical pillars. The basic tenets of CR T include ordinariness, interest convergence, social construction, differential racialization, and legal story telling. For the purpose of this research, only the tenets of ordinariness, interest convergence, social construction, and differential racialization were examined in the context of disproportionate representation of black students and male students in special education. / by Anthony G. Allen. / Thesis (Ph.D.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2010. / Includes bibliography. / Electronic reproduction. Boca Raton, Fla., 2010. Mode of access: World Wide Web.

My dissertation examines racial power dynamics and whiteness in a previously all-white suburban school district that is now home to a very racially, ethnically, religiously, and linguistically diverse population. Specifically, I explore how white parents make sense of and respond to changing racial demographics in their community and the extent to which whites maintain privilege and power as they comprise a declining proportion of the community population overall. In light of the current political and social context in the U.S that has accompanied demographic change, there is a great need to critically examine the racial ideologies of whites as they relate ongoing structures of inequality, particularly in suburban areas that are previous centers of white isolation and modern epicenters of demographic change. Using a multi-modal case study methodology, I found that in this particular suburban context, where residents of color possessed similar or greater levels of income and education than white residents, and students of color performed at similar levels as white students in the public schools, dominant ideologies that associated whiteness with superiority and goodness persisted and led some white parents to flee the changing community and schools. Moreover, despite the increasingly small proportion of whites in the community and schools, white parents and residents were able to leverage their racial privilege and status in ways that reasserted and maintained unequal racial power relations in Parkwood through school district policies and practices. This research highlights the often invisible and under-examined ways in which white interests are continuously centered and served in ways that reproduce structures of racism in the “post-racial” era. Overall, the findings from this study contradict dominant colorblind narratives and point to the many ways in which whiteness operates, often in surreptitious ways, to maintain the racial status quo and exert social control over people of color even in contexts in which logic might imply that the power and privilege associated with whiteness would be threatened.

Thesis (Ph. D)--Illinois State University, 2005. / Title from title page screen, viewed on April 16, 2007. Dissertation Committee: George Padavil, Phyllis McCluskey-Titus (co-chairs), W. Paul Vogt, William Pearch. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 103-117) and abstract. Also available in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2006. / Title from first page of PDF file. Includes bibliographical references (p. 123-134).

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Thesis (M. Ed.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Masters Abstracts International, Volume: 44-06, page: 2647. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 144-151).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Toronto, 2006. / Source: Dissertation Abstracts International, Volume: 67-07, Section: A, page: 2538. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 171-190).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 167-171).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2008. / "May 2008." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 105-120). Library also has microfilm. Ann Arbor, Mich. : ProQuest Information and Learning Company, [2009]. 1 microfilm reel ; 35 mm. Online version available on the World Wide Web.