Special Educators’ Experiences of Interpersonal Interactions While Serving Students With Emotional/Behavioral Disorders

Abstract

Students with emotional/behavioral disorders are increasingly included in general education settings, requiring their special educators to coordinate with other educators. Yet, research provides limited insights into their interactions with other educators. Thus, we qualitatively examined how special educators experienced and navigated interactions with other educators when serving students with emotional/behavioral disabilities in self-contained classes that were actively moving students into more inclusive placements. Participants emphasized that their work was interdependent with others; they relied on others for work essential to meeting students’ needs. They shared that interactions were shaped by conceptions of students’ needs, the division of responsibilities, and resources. They experienced interactions on a continuum from alignment to misalignment; when experiencing alignment, they felt supported to meet student needs, whereas they felt misalignment challenged those efforts. Participants described using varied strategies to promote alignment. Results have implications for coordinating teachers’ efforts to serve students with emotional/behavioral disabilities.