Special Education ETDs

Publication Date

7-16-1974

Abstract

Special education developed during the last seventy years through the benevolent and dedicated efforts or humanitarian organizations and persons. However, there has recently emerged strong parental opposition to a number of practices which school systems and educational practitioners employ with children, whom they have identified as being handicapped. This opposition has often been articulated through an appeal for legal and constitutional intervention, with the claim that the civil rights of children who do not perform up to normative expectations are frequently disregarded and often violated. In a number of these legal cases, the plaintiffs have prevailed and the court has formulated new requirements of school systems that will afford civil protection for vulnerable children and families, through the guarantee of legally derived procedural processes. This study has been designed to provide a fundamental practical link between the wisdom of the courts and the continuous decision-making engaged in by teachers and school administrators. The study initially examines the rationale upon which the courts have declared that adverse school classification pronouncements and highly differentiated curricula can cause significant educational and personal injury to a child. A critical are examined, usually unfamiliar to educators, is the imposition off stigma upon children and its consequent liabilities in terms of constitutionally based protections. The balance or the study is concerned with the specific applications or legal due process procedures, which are currently required of educators, as they alter the educational status of children within the operational interests of special education. The study attempts to develop a new legal awareness and sensitivity for teachers and administrators who typically create, and endorse, segregating educational mechanisms which may not be in the best interests of individual children.

Document Type

Dissertation

Language

English

Degree Name

Special Education

Level of Degree

Doctoral

Department Name

Special Education

First Committee Member (Chair)

Gary Anderson

Second Committee Member

Richard Lane McDowell

Third Committee Member

Glenn Van Etten

Fourth Committee Member

Marian Newton Shelton

Fifth Committee Member

Richard D. Van Dongen

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