Nearly 50 years of research show persistent racial disproportionality in the identification of special education disabilities, but the underlying mechanisms for these disparities remain largely unexplored. Because ambiguous regulations defining disabilities may allow subjectivity and unlawful differential treatment (i.e., racial bias or discrimination) in the special education eligibility process, an important target of study is disparate treatment of students by race in evaluations required to determine eligibility. School psychologists have long been recognized as highly influential in this process and in schools' resultant decisions. We used a 3 × 2 mixed factorial experimental design in three studies with simulated case report data to measure the influence of race and assessment data on school psychologists' perceptions of students’ eligibility for special education in cases centering on emotional disturbance, intellectual disability, or autism, respectively. Participants included 302 practicing school psychologists in three states across the three experiments. There was little evidence of racial disparity, but participants tended to render decisions unsupported by, and even contrary to, evaluation data. Implications for research, practice, and professional development are discussed.

近50年的研究表明，在识别特殊教育残疾方面持续存在种族不相称的现象，但这些差异的潜在机制在很大程度上尚待探索。由于定义残疾的模棱两可的规定可能会在特殊教育资格过程中允许主观性和非法的差别待遇（即种族偏见或歧视），因此研究的重要目标是在确定资格所需的评估中按种族对学生进行不同对待。长期以来，学校心理学家一直被认为在此过程以及学校的最终决定中具有很大的影响力。我们在三项研究中使用了3×2混合因子实验设计，并通过模拟病例报告数据来衡量种族和评估数据对学校心理学家的影响。分别以情感障碍，智力障碍或自闭症为中心的学生对特殊教育资格的看法。在这三个实验中，参与者包括来自三个州的302名在职学校心理学家。几乎没有种族差异的证据，但是参与者倾向于使决策不受评估数据的支持，甚至与评估数据背道而驰。讨论了对研究，实践和专业发展的影响。