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Degree

EdD, University of Cincinnati, Education : Curriculum and Instruction, 2010.

Abstract

This study examined the participation styles of nine parents while attending Individual Educational Program (IEP) meetings for their children. The nine parents consisted of three parents from a suburban school district, three parents from a rural school district, and three parents from an urban school district. Data collection through videotaping occurred at each designated school site during IEP meetings. A micro-ethnographic methodology was used to allow the investigator to evaluate the meetings on a sentence-by-sentence level. Analysis was based on the videotapes. An informal interview followed the IEP meetings in order to explore the parents’ perceptions of their level of participation in the IEP meeting. Six overall classifications of parental speaking turn discourses were identified: confirmation, new information, commenting, answering direct questions, solicit of clarification, and predicting. The speaking turn discourses were contrasted and compared to the speaking turns and discourses of the special education teachers. Fine-grained analysis of the transcripts of the IEP meetings lead to a description of the communication styles of the parent participants and the special education teachers. It was hypothesized that there would be similarities between parent participation styles reported in Mehan’s (1987) and Harris and Kretschmer’s (2007) studies the parent participants’ in this study. Results demonstrated passive participation from parents from all three settings. It was found that the special education teachers’ discourses and the structure of the IEP meetings were identified as hindering parent participation. The outcome of this study revealed that discourse and structure of meetings has an effect on parental participation in the IEP process for special education services. The results of this study will help delineate the limitations of the Individual with Disability Education Act (IDEA) in regards to enforcing parent participation for the identification of special needs students during IEP meetings.

Subject Headings

Special education

Keywords

Discourse; parental participation; IEP meetings; Professional discourse; Parent discourse

Committee / Advisors

Richard Kretschmer, EdD (Committee Chair)
Helen Meyer, PhD (Committee Member)
Roger Collins, PhD (Committee Member)

Pages

233p.

Document number: ucin1273002727
Permalink: http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1273002727

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