General Educators' Perceptions and Attributions About Asian American Students: Implications for Special Education Referral

This qualitative study investigated five elementary classroom teachers' perceptions of, and attributions about the school performance of Asian American students. Using naturalistic inquiry, data were obtained through interviews, classroom observations, document reviews and field notes; and were analyzed using grounded theory techniques. The findings revealed that positive, stereotypical perceptions about Asian culture generally influenced teachers'attributions about the success or failure of their Asian American students. Specifically,they were likely to overlook low performing, struggling Asian American students unless they demonstrated challenging behaviors. Further, teacher attributions reflected limited understanding of culture, second language acquisition, and disability; students' limited English proficiency was viewed as the overriding contributor to low performance of English language learners. Implications for professional development and future research are discussed.