Not in My Schoolyard: Disability Discrimination in Educational Access

Abstract

Disabled people constitute the largest minority group in the United States, and disability discrimination is prohibited under federal law. Nevertheless, disability has received limited attention in the sociology of discrimination. We examine disability discrimination in an important gatekeeping interaction: access to public education. In an audit study of more than 20,000 public schools, we sent emails to principals from fictitious prospective parents asking for a school tour, varying the child’s disability status and gender and the parent’s race. Principals were significantly less likely to respond when the child had a disability, especially when the email came from a Black (rather than White) parent. A survey experiment with 578 principals revealed possible mechanisms. Principals viewed disabled students as more likely to impose a significant burden on schools, but disabled Black students faced an additional disadvantage due to stereotypes of their parents, who were perceived to be less valuable future members of the school community in terms of fundraising, volunteering, and other forms of engagement to support the school. Our results highlight that discrimination against people with disabilities begins long before the labor market and illuminate how the intersection between disability and race shapes inequalities in educational access.

Racial/Ethnic Discrimination and Heterogeneity Across Schools in the U.S. Public Education System: A Correspondence Audit of Principals

“…Additionally, while Chinese American families faced the highest levels of discrimination, Black families faced no significant discrimination except in specific circumstances. The finding is in line with Rivera and Tilcsik (2023), who found mostly targeted instances of discrimination. By studying multiple racial/ethnic groups, we uncovered important differences in discrimination by racial/ethnic groups that did not necessarily align the way previous research might have predicted (i.e., Black people almost always face higher levels of discrimination than other racial/ethnic groups, according to nearly all field experiments on discrimination).…”

“…Moreover, these studies provide no details of potential heterogeneity in racial/ethnic discrimination in the K-12 education contextneither by individual nor contextual factors. We expand on the Rivera and Tilcsik (2023) study by (1) examining racial/ethnic discrimination in 33 states (compared to their four), (2) using four racial/ethnic groups -White, Black, Hispanic, and Chinese American (compared to their two; i.e., Black and White), and (3) testing for heterogeneity in discrimination based on randomly manipulated individual-level resource needs and school-level resource strain. Our larger, more comprehensive study provides new additional insight into the "what," "where," and "when" of racial/ethnic discrimination in the K-12 education context while simultaneously setting up new research to investigate the potential mechanisms of and solutions to this discrimination (Gaddis, 2019).…”

“…While these studies are essential, they fail to capture the scope of racial/ethnic discrimination across a wide variety of schools and racial/ethnic groups in a causal framework. An exception to this pattern comes from two recent studies using correspondence audits to provide causal evidence on racial/ethnic discrimination in K-12 schools (Oberfield and Incantalupo, 2021;Rivera and Tilcsik, 2023). However, these two studies have some crucial limitations.…”

Attractiveness and Attainment: Status, Beauty, and Jobs in China and the United States

“…In our U.S. study, for example, we only examine applicants who appear to be White, so it remains to be explored how our theory applies to job seekers from other racial groups. As noted in prior studies, the effects of status characteristics may vary with race and ethnicity (e.g., Beale 1970;Berdahl and Moore 2006;Rivera and Tilcsik 2023). Thus, we encourage more research into the interplay between race and other status characteristics.…”

Correcting Misperceptions about Ethno-Racial Discrimination: The Limits of Evidence-Based Awareness Raising to Promote Support for Equal-Treatment Policies

“…Recent examples include studies on hiring discrimination of transgender people (Granberg, Andersson, and Ahmed 2020), or on discrimination of students with a disability by public primary schools (Rivera and Tilcsik 2023). Field experimental studies indicate the prevalence and persistence of this type of discrimination, particularly towards two minorities: Black Americans in the US and immigrants and their descendants with Muslim-sounding names living in Europe (Quillian and Midtbøen 2021).…”