Although the Individuals With Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) mandates parent participation in their children’s education programs, the implementation of IDEA results in parent effort beyond participation, specifically, an expectation of advocacy. To date, research on the advocacy expectation is mixed, with some parents perceiving advocacy as an obligation to ensure appropriate services for their children, whereas others argue it is unreasonable and has cultural dissonance, disadvantaging some parents. We examined parent perspectives of the advocacy expectation in special education through 19 focus groups with 127 parents of children with disabilities across four states. Findings included a nuanced understanding of the advocacy expectation, with participants reporting the importance of advocacy and some describing that advocacy was part of their social role. However, under adversarial circumstances with school personnel, participants described feeling overwhelmed because the advocacy expectation felt more difficult than it needed to be. We discuss implications for policy and practice.

尽管《残疾人教育改进法》（IDEA）规定父母必须参加其子女的教育计划，但是IDEA的实施导致父母付出了超出参与的努力，尤其是对倡导的期望。迄今为止，对倡导期望的研究好坏参半，有些父母认为倡导是确保为子女提供适当服务的义务，而另一些人则认为倡导是不合理的，并且存在文化上的不和谐，这不利于某些父母。我们通过四个州的127个残疾儿童家长的19个焦点小组，研究了家长对特殊教育中倡导期望的看法。调查结果包括对倡导期望的细微理解，参与者报告了倡导的重要性，一些人描述了倡导是他们社会角色的一部分。但是，在与学校人员进行对抗的情况下，参与者表示感到不知所措，因为倡导期望比原本需要的困难更大。我们讨论对政策和实践的影响。