In the past two decades, federal law has increasingly pushed students with special needs (i.e., students with one of the 13 categories of disabilities recognized under federal law) into the general education classroom with their non-special-needs peers. This policy of inclusion is motivated by research suggesting that students in pull-out special education programs often make little to no academic progress during the school year. However, research also suggests that little is known about the ways by which special education students are affected by the general education classroom. In particular, there is little work on how teacher instructional practice (time on- task, content coverage, form) in the general education classroom impacts outcomes for students with special needs. Furthermore, no research to date has examined how peer behavior relates to academic and behavioral outcomes of students with special needs, though it is likely that exposure to peers exhibiting disruptive behaviors has strong impacts. Our proposed research intends to fill this research gap by contributing a deeper understanding of the ways that classroom instructional and peer contexts relate to outcomes for students with special needs and, by extension, the ways that federal policies requiring greater inclusion are changing the outcomes for these students as they progress through later stages of young adulthood. Given the issues affecting the long-term outcomes of students with special needs, the purpose of our study is to investigate three research questions related to the instructional and peer classroom contexts in school. The specific research questions guiding the research are: 1) In the general education classroom, how does the instructional and peer classroom context affect the academic and behavioral outcomes for students with special needs? 2) In what ways do these relationships differ by gender, race, and special needs disability category? 3) To what extent do these effects persist across years? Our project will examine these questions by relying on a nationally-representative longitudinal dataset (ECLSK) of school special needs students in grades K-5. Special needs students in the dataset are linked at each wave of data collection to the characteristics of their classrooms, teachers, schools, families, and neighborhoods, thereby allowing for methodological rigor. This dataset will allow us to conduct unique analyses, because we can directly link students and their classrooms over time; this will allow us to draw conclusions about how classroom context may impact multiple years of childhood. By identifying factors that affect the academic and behavioral outcomes for special needs students, it will be possible to develop policy and support interventions for at-risk students early in school, before special needs students enter later phases in life where of educational failure and the risk of negative health, behavioral, and sociological outcomes increases dramatically.
This project will examine three key issues pertaining to the academic and behavioral outcomes of students withspecial needs who are placed in general education classrooms: 1) how does the instructional and peerclassroom context affect the academic and behavioral outcomes for students with special needs?; 2) in whatways do these relationships differ by gender; race; and special needs disability category?; and 3) to what extentdo these effects persist across years? Our project will examine these questions by relying on a nationally-representative longitudinal dataset (ECLS-K) of school special needs students in grades K-5.
