17 research outputs found

    Diversity and Equity in the Distribution of Teachers With Special Education Credentials

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    The shortage of special education teachers (SETs) is a persistent challenge in the United States, but less is known about two other important issues that affect students with disabilities: racial diversity within the SET workforce and the distribution of SETs. Using administrative data on all teachers in California from 1997 to 2014, we examine the racial composition and distribution of teachers with special education credentials. Our results from descriptive and regression analyses show that while teachers with special education credentials remain majority White, the number of teachers of color with special education credentials has increased at a rate more than twice that of general education teachers and special education students of color. We also find that much of the distribution of teachers with special education credentials occurs across districts within the same regional county, while disparities in teacher qualifications are larger by school poverty, racial composition, and student achievement. The results have policy implications for improving diversity and educational equity within the special education workforce

    Teachers’ Perceptions of Academic Intrinsic Motivation for Students With Disabilities

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    Students who report high levels of intrinsic motivation (IM) perform better on academic tasks compared with students who report low levels of IM. However, there is a paucity of data on IM for several disability categories (e.g., intellectual disability). The focus of this study was to use a nationally representative sample of students with disabilities to understand whether teachers’ perceptions of students’ academic IM varied by disability categories. Correlation and regression models were used to determine factors that influenced teachers’ perceptions of academic IM for students with disabilities. Controlling for external factors, such as parental expectation of their child’s academic career and teachers’ pedagogical competence, attenuated gaps in teacher perception of student IM between students with intellectual disability and learning disability. Including student classroom collaboration variables such as frequency of participation in peer work and classroom discussion to the model reduced disparities in teacher-perceived academic IM between students with autism and learning disabilities
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