This collective of scholars was originally brought together in response to the need to expand conversations about sources, causes, and magnitude of racial inequity in special education outcomes. In the past decade, polarized debate about the sources of racialized inequities in special education has emerged, which as primarily focused on whether children of color are over-or-underrepresented in special education relative to white students. The debate has spurred important questions about complex equity issues in special education. It also highlighted the lack of scholarship related to under-representation of students of color in gifted education. 

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Drs. Catherine Voulgarides, Maria Cioe-Pena, and Rachel Fish, all assistant professors of education, were awarded funding from The Spencer Foundation to convene a group of early-career scholars from diverse disciplinary, methodological, and positional backgrounds to begin this work. This group of scholars met together in the winter of 2022 at the City University of New York (CUNY) -- Hunter College, and have begun work of creating new research trajectories that expand the field, and build an interdisciplinary, intersectional, and diverse dialogue about critical equity issues in special and gifted education. Together, we are the Collective for Equity in Special and Gifted Education.