Transition Services for Urban Students: Expanding Special Ed Programs

Introduction and Context

A wide variety of thoughtful and useful programs exist within today's educational system. Individual fields, such as special education, feature approaches and ideas that appear uniquely tailored to students' special needs. Techniques and policies are designed to work with pupils at their own level, and educators are provided with the means and materials to help young people reach their fullest potential regardless of any perceived external or internal limitations. One program does not suit all, but interestingly, many programs may possess a wider appeal than is readily apparent.

Programs geared toward special education students might, in reality, be applicable across a broader spectrum of young men and women. The skills required to teach students with special developmental and cognitive needs might indeed be applicable to students with other difficulties and requirements. One such approach is that of Transition Services and Programs. Though generally considered to belong to the field of special education, transition services and programs offer an abundance of possibilities for those with other needs and concerns.

Transition programs and services can potentially be of great help to economically disadvantaged individuals growing up in the nation's inner cities. America is filled with blighted neighborhoods that are home to youth who have, seemingly, been witness to every hardship in life. Many of these young people possess negative attitudes or simply feel hopeless — powerless to change or rise above their circumstances. Transition programs and services can be modified to aid these very boys and girls, men and women. It is the aim of this study to discover how transition programs might assist people in these situations. The researcher will study these individuals and suggest possibilities for modifying these programs and services to suit their needs, and hopefully help break the cycle of failure and despair. Adaptation and attention to new possibilities can be the way forward.

Statement of the Problem

The study of the effects of transition services and programs on non-special education populations requires first a look at the goals of those approaches in relation to the original target population. In serving special education students, transition programs and services are meant to accomplish specific ends — namely, assisting students in attaining a level of true self-awareness so that they are ultimately enabled to help themselves by setting their own short-term and long-term goals (Kohler & Field, 2003). Social skills, academic experience, job search, and work-related skills all help students with disabilities to achieve their life goals (Kohler & Field, 2003). Each is a step on the road to self-discovery, a building block in the construction of a firm foundation on which to build one's life. Each of the skills named serves both to direct the search for identity and to assist in the actual fashioning of that identity.

As an example, a student who hopes eventually to be an artist will need to learn all of the potentialities of such a career, as well as the particular skills that go into achieving success in that field. These skills would include not only the knowledge of how to physically create something in a given artistic medium, but also how to sell the finished work. Salesmanship itself would encompass skills in getting along with other people, presenting oneself in a confident and capable manner, understanding what others want and expect, and so forth.

Similarly, students who are disadvantaged in other ways must also learn to discover their true identities and goals. They must comprehend how to achieve those aims and construct all-important visualizations of self. They must learn how to interact with the wider world, and in doing so cultivate many of the same skills and talents as young men and women with physical disabilities. The transition programs and services that offer so much to special education students can also make a significant difference for non-special education students who come from disadvantaged socioeconomic and familial backgrounds — including dysfunctional homes, abusive parents or guardians, and neighborhoods rife with crime.

Significance of the Research

This research will contribute firstly to an understanding of the interrelatedness of different education fields and programs. The application of techniques developed in connection with special education to non-special education populations reveals the potential utility of narrowly conceived programs and services for atypical wider populations. Furthermore, by applying transition programs and services to other categories of disadvantaged students, the techniques and skills involved may be better discerned and understood. Using these approaches on variant populations compels a close examination of the real and inner effects of the methods employed — one must look at what is actually happening, not merely at the theory.

The study can be useful in determining which techniques work best across the board and can suggest improved approaches for both special education and non-special education populations. Lastly, the use of transition services and programs to help non-special education disadvantaged students can also lead to new ways of tackling the problems of that group, whether or not the ultimate solutions involve transition programs and services or ideas derived from those approaches. By studying the effects of transition services and programs on non-special education students, the researcher hopes to open up potential new avenues of assistance and to lay the groundwork for future research and discussion.