The U.S. Congress mandated due process hearings in special education disputes to ensure parental involvement in educational decision making and to promote individual justice. The present study explored two kinds of justice, defined as objective and subjective fairness, and examined parent and school officials' subjective experience of the fairness of their hearings. Findings indicate that hearings are not achieving subjective fairness. Neither school officials nor parents felt positively about the experience. Supplements to hearings, such as mediation and negotiation, should be studied to see if they are more effective vehicles for achieving congressional intent and for avoiding costly and emotionally draining hearings.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AchenbachT., & EdelbrockC. (1978). The classification of childhood psychopathology: A review and analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 85, 1275–1301.
2.
BudoffM. & OrensteinA. (1982). Due process in special education: On going to a hearing. Cambridge, MA: Ware.
3.
BussW. (1979). Easy cases make bad law: Academic expulsion and the uncertain law of procedural due process. Iowa Law Review, 65, 39–48.
4.
CasperJ. (1978). Having their day in court: Defendant evaluation of the fairness of their treatment. Law and Society Review, 12, 237–251.
5.
DillmanD. (1978). Mail and telephone surveys: The total design method. New York: Wiley.
6.
Education for All Handicapped Children Act (P.L. 94–142). (1975). 20 U.S.C. Sections 1401, et seq. (1982).
7.
FergusonG. A., & TakaneY. (1988). Statistical analysis in psychology and education (6th ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
8.
FlorJ. (1978). Service provider agreement and special education reform. Dissertation Abstracts International, 39, 6061A. (University Microfilms No. 7908734).
9.
FreemanM. A. (1971). A reliability study of psychiatric diagnosis in childhood and adolescence. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 12, 43–54.
10.
FriendlyH. (1975). Some kind of hearing. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 123, 1267–1317.
11.
GoldbergS. S., & KuriloffP. J. (1987). Doing away with due process: Seeking alternative dispute resolution in special education. Education Law Reporter, 43, 491–496.
12.
HandlerJ. (1986). The conditions of discretion. New York: Russell Sage Foundation.
13.
HollingsheadA. (1971). Four factor index of social status. (Working Paper). Unpublished manuscript, Yale University.
14.
KirpD.BussW., & KuriloffP. (1974). Legal reform of special education: Empirical studies and procedural proposals. California Law Review, 62, 40–155.
15.
KirpD., & JensenD. (1983). What does due process do?The Public Interest, 73, 75–90.
16.
KuriloffP. (1985). Is justice served by due process?: Affecting the outcome of special education hearings in Pennsylvania. Journal of Law and Contemporary Problems, 48, 89–118.
17.
KuriloffP.KirpD., & BussW. (1979). When handicapped children go to court: Assessing the impact of legal reform of special education in Pennsylvania. (Project No. Neg. 033-0192, Project on Student Classification and the Law). Washington, DC: National Institute of Education.
18.
LindE. A., & TylerT. R. (1988). The social psychology of procedural justice. New York: Plenum Press.
19.
LittleK., & ShneidmanE. (1959). Congruencies among interpretations of psychological test and anamnestic data. Psychological Monographs: General and Applied, 73, (6, Whole No. 476).
20.
MashawJ. (1974). The management side of due process: Some theoretical and litigation notes on the assurance of accuracy, fairness and timeliness in the adjudication of social welfare claims. Cornell Law Review, 59, 772–824.
21.
MashawJ. (1976). The Supreme Court's due process calculus for administrative adjudication in Mathews v. Eldridge: Three factors in search of a theory of value. University of Chicago Law Review, 44, 28–52.
22.
McDermottP. (1981). Sources of error in the psychoeducational evaluation of children. The Journal of School Psychology, 19, 1, 31–44.
23.
MillerR. G.Jr. (1966). Simultaneous statistical inference. New York: McGraw-Hill.
24.
NealD., & KirpD. (1985). The allure of legalization reconsidered: The case of special education. Law and Contemporary Problems, 48, 63–87.
SandiferM.HordernA.TimburyG. C., & GreenL. (1968). Psychiatric diagnosis: A comparative study of North Carolina, London, and Glasgow. British Journal of Psychiatry, 114, 1–9.
27.
SandiferM.PettusC., & QuadeD. (1964). A study of psychiatric diagnosis. Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders, 139, 350–356.
28.
SheppardB. (1985). Justice is no simple matter: Case for elaborating our model of procedural fairness. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 49, 953–962.
29.
SpitzerR. L., & FleissJ. L. (1974). A reanalysis of the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis. British Journal of Psychiatry, 125, 341–347.
30.
SpohnC.GruhlJ., & WelchS. (1982). The effect of race on sentencing: A re-examination of an unsettled question. Law and Society Review, 16, 71–88.
31.
ThibautJ., & WalkerL. (1975). Procedural justice: A psychological analysis. Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
32.
TylerT. (1984). The role of perceived injustice in defendants' evaluation of their courtroom experience. Law and Society Review, 18, 51–74.
33.
ZubinJ. (1967). Classification of the behavior disorders. In FarmworthP. R.McNemarO., & McNemanQ. (Eds.), Annual review of psychology, 18, 373–406.
