This Library is a searchable data base of over 1000 research based articles for providing instructional and behavioral supports to students with disabilities in age-appropriate general education environments. The Library compiles current published research around the topics that make up the NIUSI Systemic Change Framework. Articles around professional effort, school organizational effort and district effort and support focus on student learning and effort within the contest of families and communities. These articles can be easily searched and shared with school personnel.

Simply click on a topic to access a list of articles and abstracts related to that topic, or enter a keyword in the "Search" box to search for more specific content.

Learning Assessment

• Impact of Two-Way Immersion on Students' Attitudes toward School and College. ERIC Digest
  This digest reports on a study that examined the impact of participation in a two-way immersion program on the language and achievement outcomes of former program participants and on their current schooling path and college plans. The study explored outcomes for three groups of students: (1) Hispanic students who began the two-way program as English language learners; (2) Hispanic students who began the program as English-only or English-dominant speakers; and (3) European American students who entered the program as monolingual speakers of English.
• Forging a Knowledge Base on English Language Learners with Special Needs: Theoretical, Population, and Technical Issues
  The authors of this article reported on a conference held by the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt) concerning the topic of English Language Learners (ELLs). The article applies to teachers, families and policy makers interested in issues related to ELL students placed in Special Education.
• First things first: Demystifying data analysis
  This article applies to all teachers who struggle with which data can be used to improve teaching and learning. In this article, Schmoker points out that in developing data driven practices, teachers need to overcome experts’ tendencies to make the analyses of student achievement data complicated.
• African American Giftedness: Our Nation's Deferred Dream
  The author addresses issues that have perpetuated the underrepresentation of African Americans in gifted and talented programs, which include: inadequate definitions, standardized testing, nomination procedures, learning style preferences, family and peer influences, screening and identification, and gifted underachievers. He concludes by discussing alternative theories of giftedness and the implementation of multicultural education in teacher education programs.
• The Care and Education of Young Bilinguals: An Introduction for Professionals
  This book is a comprehensive introduction for all professionals working with bilingual children. For speech therapists, physicians, psychologists, counselors, teachers, special needs personnel, and many others, this book addresses the most important issues at a practical level.
• Democratic Dispositions and Cultural Competency: Ingredients for School Renewal
  This article argues that the current school reform movement of high-stakes testing is misguided. It advocates that democratic dispositions and cultural competency be included in the major goals of schooling and proposes that the purpose of schooling should be determined through public deliberation within diverse communities.
• Teacher Quality and Student Performance in New York City's Low-Performing Schools
  The authors evaluated achievement data on low- and high-performing urban elementary and middle school students and data on teacher characteristics, investigating relationships between teacher quality and student achievement. While poverty and minority status may have negatively influenced school achievement, they were exacerbated by stresses created by the school system.
• Teaching Other People's Ideas to Other People's Children: Integrating Messages from Education, Psychology, and Critical Pedagogy
  The authors of this paper discuss that educational endeavors are enriched by diverse forms of knowledge and experience, and, particularly in urban schools,by diverse children and teachers. An important educational task is teaching other people's ideas to other people's children.
• Epilogue: Toward an Understanding of Literacy Issues in Multicultural School-Age Populations
  This epilogue to a forum on literacy issues in school-age children from culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) backgrounds highlights research findings that address: the importance of home environment in influencing literacy; the relationship between socioeconomic status and literacy; and the use of dynamic assessment and process-dependent measures as alternative assessments.
• How Multiple Intelligences Theory Can Guide Teachers' Practices: Ensuring Success for Students with Disabilities
  This OnPoint written by National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI) explored the intersection between Multiple Intelligence(MI) and special education. MI can be used to improve the learning opportunities for diverse learners, and it has a positive impact on both students with special needs and their teachers.
• Leadership Academies - Module 5, Assessment
  Conducting sound assessments is a necessary part of exemplary teaching. Assessments not only evaluate student learning, they serve to guide subsequent instruction.
• Principles and practices of socio-cultural assessment: foundations for effective strategies for linguistically diverse classrooms.
  The authors provide assessment principles and practices that are coherent with the socio-cultural perspective and emphasizes four assessment accommodations that are appropriate for ESL learners in mainstream classrooms.
• Profoundly Multicultural Questions
  The author argues that multicultural education practices in most schools today have not adequately addressed the larger issues of social justice and equal access to educational resources. She discusses four profoundly multicultural questions educators must address: Who's taking calculus? Which classes meet in the basement? Who's teaching the children? How much are children worth? .
• Skilled Dialogue
  This paper is developed by the National Institute of Urban School Improvement (NIUSI). When we interact with students, whether to assess or to instruct, we are in dialogue with them; that is, we are transmitting and exchanging meaning across the boundaries of their identities and our own.
• Recognizing and responding to cultural differences in the education of culturally and linguistically diverse learners
  The author described a variety of ways that culture influences teacher-student and teacher-parent interactions and provides recommendations to help educators respond to the educational needs of CLD students with and without disabilities.
• The Role and Responsibilities of Teaching Assistants in Inclusive Education: What's Appropriate?
  This study describes a social validation of appropriate roles and responsibilities for teaching assistants (TAs) in inclusive classrooms. A self-report survey was rated by a sample of general education teachers, special education teachers, and TAs employed in urban and rural inclusive programs.
• "There Is No Way To Prepare for This:" Teaching in First Nations Schools in Northern Ontario--Issues and Concerns
  The author of this qualitative study examined the experiences of 10 mostly inexperienced, female teachers working in two geographically isolated Native communities in northern Ontario. Findings focus on teachers' uncertainties about appropriate pedagogical goals, the relationship of teachers to First Nations communities, living in the North, cross-cultural and multicultural teaching, and teaching English as a second language.
• Over-Identification of Students of Color in Special Education: A Critical Overview.
  The purpose of this article is to present an overview of the overrepresentation of students of color in special education programs. For this purpose, the authors outlined background history on the problem and discuss its magnitude.
• Inclusion of Students with Moderate or Severe Disabilities in Educational and Community Settings: Perspectives from Parents and Siblings
  The authors of this study used qualitative research methodology to investigate parent and sibling perspectives on the educational and community inclusion of school aged students with moderate or severe disabilities. Based on the interviews with parents from twenty-one families, they identified the type and extent of inclusive educational and community settings in which the student and his or her parents and siblings were involved.
• Immigrant Mothers Redefine Access to ESL Classes: Contradiction and Ambivalence
  The author argues that access to English-as-a-Second-Language classes is a complex issue, perhaps more personal and less amenable to solution than previously assumed. Examples are drawn from five individual life-history interviews with 19 non-English-speaking immigrant mothers of school children.
• Disproportionate representation of culturally and linguistically diverse students in special education: Measuring the problem
  This paper is one of the short practitioner-oriented pamphlets produced by the National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems (NCCRESt). This practitioner brief is about racial disproportionality in school disciplinary practices.
• Creating Culturally Responsive, Inclusive Classrooms
  The author of this article provided the following guidelines for creating culturally responsive, inclusive classrooms: use a range of culturally sensitive methods and materials, create a classroom atmosphere that respects individuals and their cultures, foster an interactive classroom learning environment, employ ongoing and culturally aware assessments, and collaborate with other professionals and families.
• Outcomes for Students With Learning Disabilities in Inclusive and Pullout Programs
  The authors of this article investigated the relationship between placement in inclusive and pullout special education programs for students with learning disabilities in the United States. Results indicated that the two programs differed significantly.