The Role of Special Education Interest Groups in National Policy

Book excerpt: This is an important book for readers with a specific interest in special education policy and political scientists who are more generally interested in the broader questions of public policy making. Itkonen investigates what types of groups participate in special education somewhere on a continuum between interest group and social movement; the relationship between group types and how they frame policy interests; how groups negotiate differences among themselves and with policy makers; and the relationships between a group's organizational character, its choice of targets and strategies, how it frames its policy interest, its arenas of action, its effectiveness in the legislative and judicial arenas, and the kinds of issue positions it takes.