Distinguishing Disability: Parents, Privilege, and Special Education (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780226630007)

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.

Author: Colin Ong-Dean
ISBN-10: 0226630005
ISBN-13: 9780226630007
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Language: English
Published: 05/15/2009
Pages: 216
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 0.90lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.70d

Review Citation(s):
Chronicle of Higher Education 05/29/2009 pg. 17
Choice 01/01/2010