MAKING SENSE OF MINORITY STUDENT IDENTIFICATION IN SPECIAL EDUCATION:

Since the inception of special education, researchers have identified higher proportions of minority students with disabilities than expected. Yet, relatively few studies have considered the contributions of the school context on a large scale to the identification of students with mental retardation (MR), emotional disturbance (ED), and learning disabilities (LD). The present study examined the extent to which race and gender of 1,394,024 students, alone and nested within 2,104 schools, predicted identification in the special education categories of MR, ED, and LD. Results revealed that, alone, student race and gender significantly predicted identification in all three categories. However, when student race and gender were nested within school context variables, they were not significant predictors; school variables alone predicted identification. School variables that were significant included school attendance rate, for all three special education categories. For MR, school mobility rate, teacher education, adequate yearly progress, and size and locale of the district were also significant predictors. The proportion of students from low income families and average teacher salaries were significant predictors for ED, and district size, as wel