Sullivan, A., & Artiles, A. (2011). Theorizing Racial Inequity in Special Education: Applying Structural Inequity Theory to Disproportionality. Urban Education, 46(6).  http://search.proquest.com/docview/897474864/

This article acknowledges the history of researching racial disproportionality in special education.They discuss the gaps in research and understand that the research on this topic is incomplete. Sullivan and Artiles show that disproportionality is usually observed in “high-incidence categories” such as learning disabilities, emotional disabilities and mental retardation (this research spanned since the 1960s, though the term “mental retardation” would not be used today). These high-incidence categories only account for 59% of the students who receive special education resources, and is therefore leaving out almost half of the population. Additionally, many studies focus solely on the disparities among African American populations, though disparities are present in other racial demographics as well. Many studies have also found their samples in the southern region of the United States. A quarter of research has focused on the category of Learning Disabled. So, while there has been much research on the topic of disproportionality in special education, many parts of the population is absent from research and there are significant gaps. The authors also argue that a structural theoretical framework is needed to understand racial inequality across “analytical scales, racial groups, and disability categories”.

The research questions Sullivan and Artiled sought to answer were: “To what extent are racial minority students disproportionately represented in special education across analytical scales and disability categories?” and “To what extent is disproportionality for the different race-disability groupings (e.g., Latino students identified as MR) predicted by the structural factors of LEAs?” Demographic and organizational data were needed for this research. Enrollment data was found for the 2004-2005 academic year from the public annual reports published by the Arizona Department of Education. Arizona had a diverse population which was important to study trends across the state’s fourteen disability categories. I was interested in how the research pointed to the need for further examination of policy negotiation. Policies should reflect the needs of the population and this research outlined some of the ways that state and district educational policies are not supporting the needs of their students and are contributing to the disproportionality seen in special education. The policies currently in place, specifically at the local level according to the authors, perpetuate racism and power discrepancies among races in education.