n today's fast changing and interconnected global world, researchers in a variety of areas have come to see identity as an important analytic tool for understanding schools and society. A focus on the contextually specific ways in which people act out and recognize identities allows a more dynamic approach than the sometimes overly general and static trio of "race, class, and gender." However, the term identity has taken on a great many different meanings in the literature. Rather than survey this large literature, I will sketch out but one approach that draws on one consistent strand of that literature. This is not to deny that other, equally useful approaches are possible, based on different selections from the literature.

Identity as an analytic lens for research in education

Among the most-longstanding and intransigent issues in the field, the disproportionate representation of minority students in special education programs has its roots in a long history of educational segregation and discrimination. Although national estimates of disproportionality have been consistent over time, state and local estimates may show varying patterns of disproportionality. A number of factors may contribute to disproportionality, including test bias, poverty, special education processes, inequity in general education, issues of behavior management, and cultural mismatch/cultural reproduction. This article provides a report on the history, measurement, status, and factors contributing to disproportionate representation in special education, and offers recommendations based on an understanding of racial and ethnic disparities in special education as a multiply determined phenomenon.

Achieving Equity in Special Education: History, Status, and Current Challenges:

Common sense allows that persons unable to handle a difficult problem can be labeled “disabled.” Social analysis shows that being labeled often invites a public response that multiplies the difficulties facing the seemingly unable. Cultural analysis shows that disability refers most precisely to inadequate performances only on tasks that are arbitrarily circumscribed from daily life. Disabilities are less the property of persons than they are moments in a cultural focus. Everyone in any culture is subject to being labeled and disabled.

Culture as Disability.

This book presents a social perspective on literacy and on its acquisition. The term 'literacy' is notoriously vague, and in the opening chapter of this collection, Jenny Cook-Gumperz examines the historical background which came to equate 'universal literacy' with the resolution of society's ills, and questions why, when this objective has been so nearly realised in Western society, some people are clearly considered more 'literate' than others. The central thesis of the book is that literacy is now equated with school performance, but that educational assessments of literacy are often woefully inadequate. The empirical studies of classroom life that form the core of the book examine classroom interactions in a variety of settings and tellingly illustrate the need for students to acquire discourse strategies that are socially 'approved'. The volume as a whole presents a new perspective on literacy acquisition - as not simply a cognitive process but a socially and communicatively based skill. The original methodological approach provides for a fine tuned analysis that increases our understanding of communicative interaction in general and has wide ranging implications for educational theory and practice.

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The Social construction of literacy

This review identifies research-based definitions of ideal collaborative relationships between special education professionals and culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) families of children with disabilities, examines research on actual collaboration with such families, and makes recommendations regarding improvement of such collaboration. The main sources of literature are research and opinion publications in peer-reviewed journals and books by leading scholars. The review concludes that barriers to the implementation of ideal practices include deficit views of CLD families, cross-cultural misunderstandings related to the meanings of disability, differential values in setting goals for individuals with disabilities, and culturally based differences in caregivers' views of their roles. Recommendations for change and improvement focus on personnel preparation and on implementing existing models of effective practice.

Collaboration with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Families: Ideal versus Reality

\"Professors Bean and Swicegood have written a most impressive book. It is the first comprehensive theoretical and empirical study of Mexican fertility in the United States. Its review of the theoretical and research literature is superb, and its analyses illuminating. It will be a benchmark study for years to come.\" -DOUGLAS S. MASSEY, Chair Graduate Group in Demographye Associate Professor of Sociology, 5 University of Pennsylvania

J. Lee Meihls

Papers

Handicapping the Handicapped: Decision Making in Students' Educational Careers.