Including Community and Family in Indigenous Special Education: A Book Review of School –Parent Collaborations in Indigenous Communities: Providing Services for Children with Disabilities

Abstract

Globally, Indigenous communities face roadblocks that hinder their success in educational settings. These roadblocks include poverty, lack of social supports, limited access to education, and a high risk for health problems. Indigenous students with special needs face even greater challenges.  School –Parent Collaborations in Indigenous Communities: Providing Services for Children with Disabilities provides a comprehensive overview of the context of disability within indigenous experience. The study comprehensively examines the uniqueness of indigenous communities on a global scale, psychological models of reactions to disability, the benefit of multidisciplinary teams in working with schools and families, factors affecting collaboration between indigenous parents of children with disabilities and school professionals, and core values of indigenously attuned collaboration. Manor-Binyamini discusses her pilot study conducted among the Bedouins of Southern Israel to illustrate the ways that special education teachers and personnel engage Bedouin parents in interventions for their children. Rather than focusing solely on cultural sensitivity as a guiding force, the model Manor-Binyamini advocates, “Knowledge in Action” calls for special educators and professionals to be cultural mediators between family and schools. The model has the potential to impact the ways in which special educators work with indigenous communities globally and locally to improve the health and well-being of indigenous students with special needs.