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

organizations’ constituency bases, the circumstances under which they were formed, and their resources (e.g., staff sizes of the national office, and whether they are registered under the Lobbying Disclosure Act). I show that groups composed of parents of children with disabilities differ from organizations that represent education professionals. First, the disability advocacy groups have substantially smaller national office staff than do professional groups. Furthermore, I propose that parent and disability advocacy groups originated as pain and loss groups and resemble social movements. Many of these organizations emerged as loose networks of local parents, who were seeking services for their children and emotional support for themselves. These parents’ desire to become politically active is motivated by gaining emotional support from other parents who share the experience of raising a child with disabilities. In addition, the gratification of publicly expressing a value—rights for their children—motivates political participation of these groups. As I show in chapter 7, political participation for these parents is highly personal in nature, and fraught with emotional symbols. The organizational characteristics, on a social movement–interest group continuum, are an independent variable that I test systematically to explain how groups define their policy interests, choose which institutions to target, make strategic choices, and rate their overall effectiveness.

Problem Definition. Although groups in this study use strategies typical of interest groups (e.g., campaign contributions, lobbying, advertising campaigns), how groups define their policy interests is of particular importance in special education. Most disability advocacy groups composed of parents do not have the kind of economic resources found in interest groups in other policy areas (e.g., healthcare, farming). Therefore, they rely on strategic, sophisticated problem definition to tell their policy stories in order to persuade policy makers.

This research also contributes to broader interest group literature by providing a model to analyze how groups define their policy interests and testing it empirically.

As for the literature on how groups define and communicate their interests, my work points toward a complex and nuanced picture. I