Making Decisions about Children's Disabilities: Mediation and Structuration in Cross-System Meetings

Abstract

This study examined parent–professional decision-making regarding children with disabilities. Structurating activity theory guided the qualitative interpretive analysis of transcripts from 16 meetings regarding special education decisions for students, including 10 meetings in English and 6 meetings in Spanish. Results reveal how professional elements, such as documents, influenced decision-making more than family elements, such as parent knowledge. Interpreters influenced interactions based on their abilities to connect multiple elements of family and professional systems. Decision-making was structurating as participants used and reproduced broad social structures, such as expert power and the authority of policy. Conclusions offer theoretical and practical implications of findings.

Keywords:

• Culture
• Decision-Making
• Disability
• Family
• Structurating Activity Theory

Notes

Note. *Indicates one parent who participated in two meetings, each regarding a different child of hers.

Previous analyses of the entire data set focused on theoretical development and the construction of policy knowledge across social systems (Canary, 2007, 2010a, 2010b; Canary & McPhee, 2009).