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The next section explores barriers that exist due to law, culture, and the school system, in general. Although some of these barriers have been touched upon in the previous two sections, they merit mention as a larger societal barrier as well.

2.4.5.1 Barriers Due to Language of Special Education/Disability Law

Whether parent language difficulties are due to cultural/linguistic differences or whether they are due to a lack of understanding of the vocabulary, parents often have a difficult time navigating the special education system because of language barriers. Special educators have the tendency to use jargon and acronyms, with which they are very familiar, but parents are not (Lo, 2008). Like other areas of the law, special education law is often difficult to understand unless very familiar with the verbiage. This can create a gap between parents and educators unless parents clearly understand the law and the process.

There are several studies regarding the readability levels of special education procedural safeguards (Table 2). Procedural safeguards are the legal documents provided by school districts to parents outlining their rights with regard to special education. Although the regulations recommend that parents' rights handouts contain language that the average person can decipher, studies show that they tend to be written at a higher level than many parents are able to read (Mandic, Rudd, Hahir, & Acevedo-Garcia, 2012). This creates a literacy barrier for many parents and can hinder their understanding of the process or their rights.

Table 3. Readability Studies Summary

READABILITY STUDIES

Authors Documents examined Formula used Grade level of text

Pruitt (2003) Special education documents, procedural safeguards for one Tennessee School

Flesch Mean = Grade 12

Fitzgerald & Watkins (2006)

Procedural Safeguards for all states except Ohio

Flesch Mean = Grade 12

Mandic et el. (2012) Procedural Safeguards for all 50 states and D.C.

SMOG formula Mean = Grade 16 Median = Grade 16

2.4.5.2 Barriers Because School Staff Are Viewed As Experts

There is often inequality in the roles of the various team members on IEP teams. Parents are often passive participants, while teachers consider themselves the specialists (Bakken & Obiakor, 2008; Valle, 2011). School personnel often prepare IEP documents before the meeting, allowing the parents very little input into the document. Thus, schools “deprive parents of empowerment” to which they are entitled under special education law (Mannan & Blackwell, 1992, p. 220).

Very often students with low incidence disabilities (those that are not as common, i.e., spina bifida or deaf-blindness) have individual needs about which parents can provide the school valuable information, but school personnel dismiss the information as having no value (Valle, 2011).

Moreover, parent training opportunities are frequently presented as a “one-way transmission of knowledge…that effectively dismisses the value of parent knowledge and any chance for collaboration” (Valle, 2011, p. 188). Turner (2001) suggests that if IEP teams are to be truly effective, parent training should target collaboration with school teams and not just parents’ lack of knowledge.

2.4.5.3 Deficit Views of People with Disabilities

Several authors address what they term the deficit view that school staff have toward students with disabilities (Bakken & Obiakor, 2008; Harry, 1992; Karge and Lasky, 2011). Oftentimes, school personnel make a judgment about a student’s lack of ability to achieve. They tend to have lower expectations for the students’ futures than their parents do (Heatherington et al., 2010). It is easy to see how believing that a child does not have the potential to achieve can lead to insufficient targeted goals and objectives, which may negatively affect the student’s future outcomes for transitioning from school.

2.4.5.4 Barriers Due to Culture

There are many barriers to parent involvement due to cultural diversity. Parents that are not native English speakers especially have a difficult time understanding not only the language, but also the entire process of special education. Lo (2008) studied Chinese families and the barriers they faced in the special education process. She noted that the cultural mores in China toward

teachers, who are esteemed, respected, and not to be confronted or questioned, places a whole new set of barriers to the collaborative process. Other ethnic groups face similar challenges.

There are many definitions for the term culture that extend beyond a person’s nationality. A school can also have a culture of its own, which can be defined as:

The character of a school as it reflects deep patterns of values, beliefs and traditions that have been formed over the course of its history…This invisible, taken-for-granted flow of beliefs and assumptions gives meaning to what people say and do. It shapes how they interpret hundreds of daily transactions. This deeper structure of life in organizations is reflected and transmitted through symbolic language and expressive action. Culture consists of the stable, underlying social meanings that shape beliefs and behavior over time. (Deal and Peterson, 1990, p. 7)

School climate can also be a form of culture. At times, the culture in the school may not be one that is conducive to parents initiating communication with staff and not perceived as being welcoming (Mannan & Blackwell, 1992). The culture of the school may be one where there is more focus on the school system rather than on a family involvement model (Turnbull & Turnbull, 1997). In order to facilitate family or parent involvement, Starr and Foy (2012) recommend that schools work toward creating a trusting climate, where parents feel they are part of the community.

2.4.5.5 Summary

Societally generated barriers also inhibit parent involvement in the special education transition process. These include the law, culture and systemic barriers. In order for the transition process

to be successful, school personnel must examine the cultural barriers within the school system to ensure that they are not hindering parent involvement in the process.