Disability, Education, and Poverty: A Social Analysis

Introduction

The self-sufficiency of any person or group largely depends on the capacity to maintain a certain level of financial stability. As a group, people with disabilities are among those with the highest poverty rates and lowest educational levels, despite typically incurring some of the highest out-of-pocket expenses of any demographic group. Educational attainment is strongly related to financial status and independence in most studies examining these variables. Despite regulations intended to provide an equal and fair education to students identified as having disabilities, the research indicates that the majority of these individuals do not reach the educational levels or financial status of their non-disabled peers. The limitations of a failed assistance system — one that creates a double-edged sword by stigmatizing the very students it aims to help — have made it extremely difficult for this group to achieve even an average standard of living.

What Is a Disability?

The formal definition of disability remains somewhat unsettled. A disability may include physical factors, cognitive issues, mental health issues, sensory problems, emotional difficulties, delays in normal development, or a combination of such factors. There are a number of formal definitions for disability, but perhaps the most widely cited is that from the World Health Organization (WHO, 2012):

Disability is an umbrella term, covering impairments, activity limitations, and participation restrictions. An impairment is a problem in body function or structure; an activity limitation is a difficulty encountered by an individual in executing a task or action; while a participation restriction is a problem experienced by an individual in involvement in life situations.

Thus, disability is a complex phenomenon, reflecting an interaction between features of a person's body and features of the society in which he or she lives.

Educational Factors in Disabilities

The WHO definition leaves considerable open territory, which is viewed as either beneficial or problematic depending on the interpreter and the purpose of defining a subset of individuals with disabilities. For the purposes of this paper, this is the formal definition that will be considered, since the discussion is not limited to any single group. Under this definition, individuals may qualify as disabled if they have had a significant past impairment — especially if it still interferes with daily functioning — or if they can be demonstrated to be disabled when compared to a group norm. Such impairments may also incorporate cognitive, sensory, physical, or developmental issues. Under the WHO definition, mental disorders fall under the rubric of psychosocial disability or psychiatric disability. Certain activists, however, oppose categorizing specific conditions as disabilities, arguing that some should be understood as developmental differences that have been unjustly stigmatized (DePoy & Gilson, 2004). The WHO definition does not make such a distinction and remains the most comprehensive and useful framework available.

In assessing the effect of having a disability, the first step is to examine how disabilities of all types affect the ability to receive equal educational opportunities. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act of 2004 (IDEA) remains the most important body of legislation specifying how educational services should be allocated to children and students with disabilities (United States Department of Education). A brief historical overview is useful before reviewing the act's overall impact.

In 1954, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka ended the practice of segregating Black and white students into separate schools. Education was a central concern of the Civil Rights Movement, and this ruling eventually led to further legislation. Prior to 1975, U.S. public schools were governed by state laws, many of which excluded children with certain types of disabilities from attending public schools (Osgood, 2008). Actions such as the lawsuit brought by the Pennsylvania Association for Retarded Children against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1972 — challenging the exclusion of disabled children from equal educational opportunities — foreshadowed the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, which established that federal programs could not discriminate on the basis of disability, though parents still had to sue formally to gain equal access (Osgood, 2008). The Education for All Handicapped Children Act of 1975 allowed parents to demand administrative hearings, reducing litigation costs, and entitled their children to a free public education in the least restrictive environment (Osgood, 2008). In 1990, that act was replaced by the IDEA, which shifted the focus to the individual student rather than merely to the condition. The IDEA also improved upon its predecessor by promoting research, outlining transition programs beyond the high school level, and supporting the placement of disabled students in neighborhood schools (Osgood, 2008). The current updated version was passed in 2004, and over six million children and adolescents with disabilities now receive services under it (Artiles et al., 2010).

A full discussion of all aspects of the IDEA is beyond the scope of this paper; however, the following key provisions are relevant:

Part B of the IDEA stipulates that states receiving federal funds must provide a free and appropriate public education to all students with disabilities. This education is provided at public expense, under public supervision and direction, and without charge. It must satisfy the standards of the relevant state education agency and include appropriate preschool, elementary, and/or secondary schooling that conforms to the IDEA program established for the individual child. Schools must also educate students with disabilities in the least restrictive environment, meaning in a regular classroom alongside peers whenever possible, or in an educational setting appropriate to the nature of the disability (Osgood, 2008).

One significant issue in the identification of disability — particularly as it affects children's education and subsequently their income and employment as adults — is disproportionate representation. Oswald, Coutinho, Best, and Singh (1999) described disproportionate representation as the situation that occurs when membership in a specific group increases the probability of being placed in a particular disability category. It is well documented, for example, that certain ethnic groups are disproportionately represented in special education (Hibel, Farkas, & Morgan, 2010). Artiles et al. (2010) report that these students are disproportionately placed in the mild intellectual disability, learning disability, and emotional/behavioral disorder categories. Artiles et al. refer to these students collectively as "historically underserved groups" (p. 279) — students from diverse ethnic, cultural, linguistic, and economically disadvantaged backgrounds who have experienced chronic failure within the school system. Research has identified mediating factors including socioeconomic status, the proportion of minority students in a given school system, and language background (Oswald et al., 1999). Despite these challenges, the IDEA has at least changed the fundamental approach to educating students identified as having a disability.

Before the IDEA, students with disabilities were frequently segregated from mainstream classrooms (Artiles et al., 2010). The IDEA emphasizes inclusive education to remove stigma and reduce the psychological and emotional barriers associated with disability. However, achieving inclusive education in practice has proven difficult, and for many students with disabilities high-quality learning is not consistently occurring. The proportion of students with disabilities spending more than 80% of their time in general classrooms has increased over the past two decades. Nevertheless, students with language impairments, specific learning disabilities, hearing impairments, or visual impairments are most likely to be included in mainstream classes, while students with intellectual disabilities, mental disabilities, emotional disorders, or multiple concurrent disabilities are least likely to be included. Only 58% of all students with disabilities spend 80% or more of their time in regular classrooms (National Council on Disability [NCD], 2011).

The inequalities linked to disability identification are reflected clearly in high school graduation rates. For the 2007–2008 academic year, the average graduation rate for non-disabled students in the United States was just over 75% (NCD, 2011). Graduation rates by disability category for the same period were as follows: visual impairments, 77%; hearing impairments, 70%; other health impairments, 67%; speech or language impairments, 67%; traumatic brain injury, 65%; specific learning disabilities, 64%; autism, 63%; orthopedic impairments, 62%; deaf-blindness, 57%; emotional disturbance, 46%; multiple disabilities, 46%; intellectual disability, 38% (NCD, 2011). These figures reveal a clear relationship between the severity of disability and graduation rates, and suggest that disabilities keeping students out of mainstream classroom environments are associated with less successful educational outcomes.

Direct data on postsecondary education and employment for students with disabilities comes from the Department of Education–funded National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS2), which was designed to understand the characteristics and outcomes of high school students with disabilities as they transition to adulthood (National Longitudinal Transition Study-2, 2011). The NLTS2 sample consisted of slightly over 11,000 students between the ages of 13 and 16 who had been receiving special education services in seventh grade or beyond during the 2000–2001 academic year. The sample was nationally representative of youth with disabilities and included students across all 12 federal special education disability categories. Data were collected over five waves spanning a nine-year period.

The NLTS2 also assessed functional skills across four clusters — motor skills, social interaction and communication, personal living skills, and community living skills — as well as an overall measure of independence. The mean standard scores for those with disabilities ranged from 43 to 57 across these measures, compared with a mean of 100 for the general population, placing most of this group well below the first percentile. This figure had not changed appreciably by 2009. Between 22% and 38% of the disability group obtained scores across subtests that were more than six standard deviations below the mean. Only 11% to 15% had functional rating scores above the general population mean.

With respect to postsecondary education, approximately 30% of out-of-school individuals with disabilities were enrolled in some form of postsecondary schooling following high school, with 25% attending a postsecondary institution at the Wave 2 interview — significantly lower than enrollment rates for non-disabled peers. Non-disabled high school graduates were approximately four and a half times more likely than their disabled counterparts to be enrolled in a four-year college. Nearly five percent of graduates with disabilities attended postsecondary vocational, business, or technical schools within two years of high school graduation. By 2009, over 85% of those surveyed were earning less than $25,000 annually, even among four-year college graduates. Two years after graduation, the average hourly wage for employed members of the disability group was $7.30, and the majority still lived with their parents.

Conclusion and Recommendations

Reducing the stigma of having a disability is no easy problem. No single, all-encompassing solution exists. However, several evidence-based strategies are available. First, research in social psychology consistently demonstrates that when people work together toward a shared superordinate goal, stigma, prejudice, and intergroup tension are reduced (Sherif et al., 1961). Therefore, not merely placing students with disabilities in mainstream classrooms but actively having them collaborate with non-disabled peers — through sports, theater, class projects, and similar activities — can significantly reduce stigma, lessen bias, and build meaningful social bonds. Second, parents, families, and community members could benefit from structured educational programs designed to reduce the stigma associated with specific types of disabilities. Third, labels such as "disability" and "disorder" should be phased out in favor of more neutral terminology. Finally, early training in functional and life skills should be a priority for students identified as having special needs. The overriding goal should be to foster as much independence as possible from the earliest point of identification, rather than reinforcing dependency through protective but ultimately limiting interventions.