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Description
The purpose of this qualitative phenomenological study was to examine the preparation of special education teachers to manage conflict in IEP meetings. For the purposes of this study, conflict is defined where an advocate and/or lawyer were present at an IEP meeting. Twenty special educators were interviewed who have been in conflict-laden IEP meetings. The interviews revolved around three research questions: (a) To what extent does a special education teacher’s training, both preservice and after, impact their ability to engage in conflict in IEP meetings? (b) To what extent do external factors, such as disintegration of Black teaching force, distrust of the educational system, postsecondary outcomes for students with disabilities, cross-cultural communication gap, and legal provisions in special education impact a special education teacher’s effectiveness in engaging with conflict in IEP meetings? (c) What recommendations do special educators who have been involved in conflict in IEP meetings have for preparation and in-service training? Three themes emerged from the data collected from this study. The three themes were: (a) Limited special education teacher preparation to manage conflict in IEP meetings; (b) Limited special education teacher training on external factors that can lead to conflict in IEP meetings; (c) Recommendations for perspective and current special education teachers training to engage productively with conflict in IEP meetings. The study’s results indicate that when special education teachers are trained to engage with conflict and external factors that lead to conflict in IEP meetings, their capacity increases to productively manage conflict in IEP meetings.
