Expanding access to meaningful employment has been a long-standing emphasis of policy and legislative initiatives focused on transition-age youth and young adults with disabilities (National Council on Disability, 2008;Phelps & Hanley-Maxwell, 1997; President's Commission on Excellence in Special Education, 2002). Indeed, improving employment outcomes was a prominent element within early conceptualizations of transition education (Halpern, 1985;Will, 1984). Although frameworks for high-quality transition services and supports have evolved over the last 25 years, equipping youth to secure meaningful work after high school or college has endured as an essential outcome of education in the United States. This abiding accent is apparent within the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) of 2004, which states that a central purpose of special education is to "prepare [students with disabilities] for further education, employment, and independent living" as part of a national policy aimed at "ensuring equality of opportunity, full participation, independent living, and economic self-sufficiency for individuals with disabilities" (Public Law 108-442).The exigency to better prepare students with disabilities for future careers is especially apparent when considering the current outcomes encountered by adults with severe disabilities.Most available indicators suggest that a relatively small proportion of adults with severe intellectual disabilities, autism, or multiple disabilities access paid work experiences in their local communities (Boeltzig, Timmons,

Home—school partnerships in special education often include parent advocacy that at times requires specific and specialized knowledge, skills, and attitudes. Parent participation is shaped by access to cultural and social capital resources and is critical to assessment and service delivery. This study explores the types of capital resources parents perceived necessary to their participation via five focus groups of participants from a range of socioeconomic, disability, and racial or ethnic backgrounds through 27 in-depth interviews. NVIVO7 was used to analyze data; categorical meaning and relational themes were coded recursively. Results indicated that intercultural and intracultural differences existed among parents. Advocacy on behalf of one student also required different capital resources than did advocacy for systems change. Discussion focuses on implications of parent advocacy on educational equity.

Transition models include components of student self-determination during transition planning meetings. Researchers acknowledge that cultural identity may influence both transition decisions and self-determination strategies. Yet the appropriateness of these approaches for culturally and linguistically diverse students with learning disabilities (LD) remains unknown. This study examined self-determination perceptions and behaviors of European American, African American, and Hispanic American male adolescents with LD. Data were collected during focus group and individual interviews, observations, and document reviews. Qualitative data analysis provided information about students' behaviors and perceptions during postsecondary transition planning. The findings indicated that differences within this group of diverse participants were subtle. Students identified themselves and family members--rather than teachers--as key players in transition planning. Students perceived that self-determination efforts were thwarted in school contexts, whereas self-determination opportunities in home contexts were more accessible and productive.

Despite previous and successful attempts to outline general criteria for rigor, researchers in special education have debated the application of rigor criteria, the significance or importance of small n research, the purpose of interpretivist approaches, and the generalizability of qualitative empirical results. Adding to these complications, the breadth of qualitative research methods makes a single set of universally applicable criteria difficult to identify and use. Based on input from qualitative researchers across the social sciences, we augment and expand the oft-cited criteria for rigor established in special education, thus broadening the potential application and contribution of qualitative research in the areas of disability and education. We identify exemplars from special education research and use these to illustrate ways qualitative research can push the field to strengthen the theoretical foundations of empirical work, as well as to acknowledge more forthrightly the roles of the researcher in the research endeavor.

The early work experiences of a nationally representative sample of youth with severe disabilities (i.e., intellectual disabilities, autism, multiple disabilities) were examined. Using data from the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2, we explored the extent to which various student-, family-, school-, and community-level factors were associated with paid work experiences during high school. Findings highlight the elusiveness of early work experiences for many youth with severe disabilities and call attention to malleable factors that may play a role in shaping employment success during high school. Recommendations for research and practice are highlighted.