Does Parental Involvement Change After Schools Assign Students an IEP?

ABSTRACT

Researchers suggest that parental involvement is important for parents of students with disabilities. While some research has examined parental involvement in the special education process, no research has investigated how general forms of parental involvement changes once a child begins to receive special education services. We consider various forms of parent involvement to exist within microsystems (e.g., home-based involvement) and mesosystems (e.g., school-based involvement) and how these actions are shaped by different factors of exosystems (e.g., neighborhoods) and the overarching macrosystems (e.g., poverty). With this framework, we consider the extent to which parental involvement changes for parents of students with disabilities following the assignment of the child’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). Specifically using the ECLS-K: 2011, we exploit variation in home-based involvement, school-based involvement, and home-school communication based on children who have an IEP in one year but not the year before or after. Findings suggest that parents increased their home-based involvement actions following IEP assignment, though this was especially pronounced for parents from historically disenfranchised backgrounds. Findings also suggest that parents of English-language learners and second-generation students and parents in urban areas were more likely to increase their school-based involvement actions following IEP assignment.

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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ In accordance with NCES reporting requirements, all sample sizes are rounded to the nearest tenth.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

J. Jacob Kirksey

J. Jacob Kirksey is an assistant professor in the College of Education at Texas Tech University. His research is broadly focused on issues at the nexus of education and other areas of public policy, which includes student absenteeism and truancy, inclusion and special education, the ripple effects of immigration enforcement, and the teacher workforce.

Michael A. Gottfried

Michael A. Gottfried is an associate professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. His research areas include the economics of education and education policy, specifically around absenteeism and truancy, career and technical education, and special education.

Jennifer A. Freeman

Jennifer A. Freeman is a PhD student in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests lie in educational policies that promote college and career readiness for underrepresented populations in STEM, particularly students with disabilities and community college transfer students.