The Role of Special Education Interest Groups in National Policy ...

other words, are rarely placed at the core of conceptual frameworks and studied as units of analysis (Mawhinney, 2001).

This project considers it a political matter and is grounded on the assumption that special education is a policy domain characterized by multiple and competing interests. These interests operate in a political, multi-institutional policy environment and employ targeted strategies to further specific policy goals. Special education, as a national policy, is the sum of incremental policy-making across multiple institutions (March & Olsen, 1989; Melnick, 1994). The multiple access points to the policy-making system afford institutions the ability to create and interpret policy across time and context. As a result, special education is defined by federal law, corresponding state laws, regulations, judicial interpretations, and local implementation.

This research thus conceptualizes special education as a political issue, not as an educational matter. The research broadens the understanding of how special education policy is formulated and the specific role that interest groups play in the process. In using social science research tools and theoretical constructs to analyze a phenomenon not previously examined, I bring a unique perspective to the study of special education and interest groups more broadly. By systematically analyzing how groups define their policy interests, the findings contribute to the theory of problem definition. I present an explanatory model that integrates issue frames, policy stories, and construction of target populations. Then, systematically, I test the relationship among the components and their effects on organizations’ legislative and court victories over time. The study further contributes to pain and loss activism literature, and it increases the knowledge about the political participation of parents of children with disabilities, who have a deep personal investment in the policy outcomes (Jennings, 1999). Finally, the study’s longitudinal focus on advocacy organizations from the initial passage of the federal special education statute in 1975 through its reauthorizations—a 30-year time span—contributes to the knowledge of interest group interactions over time.

Much of the data for this research consists of content analyses of Congressional testimonies and amicus curiae⁵ briefs to the Supreme