Minorities are disproportionately underrepresented in special education: Longitudinal evidence across five disability conditions

Morgan, P.L., Farkas, G., Hillemeier, M.M., Mattison, R.L., Maczuga, S., Li, H., & Cook, M. (2015). Minorities are disproportionately underrepresented in special education: Longitudinal evidence across five disability conditions. Educational Researcher, 44(5), 278-292.


Debates about special education often seem to be tensions between a “glass is half full” view of special education and a “glass is half empty” view. That is, it seems to make an important difference whether you view special education as a valuable resource which needs to be carefully allocated to help those who need it most, or whether you view special education as a form of discrimination and segregation that will stigmatize and disadvantage learners, to be used only for the most severe cases that really cannot have their needs met through “regular” education. I suspect that the reality of special education in the United States lies somewhere in between. However, the lens through which one primarily views special education will shape how the reader will respond to the research presented here by Morgan et al.

I would have to say that I have recently been more on the “glass is half empty” side of the debate, which seems to be the more prevalent view among educators today. We have been presented with research showing that minority students are disproportionately overrepresented in special education, and this is presented as a bad thing, needing to be changed. We have read, and written, and talked, and listened to all kinds of ideas about why this occurs, but in short, this overrepresentation is presented as the result of discrimination by the dominant school culture (reportedly dominated by the values espoused by white, middle-class, mostly female educators), with differences from the dominant model of school behavior and performance being seen as deficits. We have tried to address this “deficit model” and its relationship to the “achievement gap”. In short, I think many educators, including me, have taken the “minority disproportionate representation” argument to mean “minority overrepresentation”, and we have seen that as a bad thing. The federal government has apparently agreed, enacting laws that require reporting of the proportions of minority representation in special education, and there are financial ramifications if overrepresentation is reported.

Here, Morgan et al present evidence that they claim supports the idea that just the opposite of the prevailing view may be true: minority students may be underrepresented in special education in the United States. Longitudinal evidence, including controlling for many different factors, and ranging across several disability categories, is presented here. The study is complex, long-term, and intensive, so the results are important to know about, no matter what your view of special education is. Clearly, Morgan et al see this underrepresentation as a bad thing, a form of discrimination that withholds resources from learners who need them. If indeed minorities are underrepresented in special education, the prevailing view that minorities are overrepresented has led us to act in ways that are the exact opposite of the kinds of actions that are needed. That is, the actions inspired by the prevailing view of overrepresentation have led to actions that may be exacerbating underrepresentation.

Logically, it would seem that we need to aim for the middle ground. Why is it so difficult to get to a place where our data will show that minorities are neither over-represented nor under-represented in special education? The goal should be a “just right” proportion where the percentages of minority students in special education are equal to the percentages of minority students in the general population in U.S. schools. Why can’t we get to that point? The more I think about this, the more I realize that whatever direction it takes, minority disproportionate representation in special education is the result of deeply ingrained discrimination in U.S. schools, and indeed, in U.S. society. That discrimination is part of our past, and is still here in our present. What can we do to make this part of our past and learn from it, but remove it from our present and our future?

Obviously we need to know more about disproportionate representation and why it occurs. As Morgan et al point out near the close of the article, learning more about the “whys” of disproportionate representation in special education will require qualitative, in-depth research into the factors and processes that are involved in deciding who is placed in special education and who is not. Such research will be lengthy, and costly, but it will be necessary if we are ever to get the answers we need for the questions raised by this difficult issue.