Special Education Leadership: Integrating Professional and Personal Codes of Ethics to Serve the Best Interests of the Child

Abstract

Special education teachers who also serve as case managers for students with disabilities are in unique leadership positions in which they face complex ethical dilemmas and are called on to make decisions that involve multiple competing interests and pressures. The purpose of this study was to explore how special education leaders identify ethical dilemmas and to examine the ethical perspectives that influenced their decision making. Through a series of focus group interviews based on a semistructured interview protocol, special education case mangers engaged in collective discussions about ethics and ethical decision making. The findings suggest that special education leaders operate according to an ethical framework that integrates personal and professional codes of ethics and emphasizes the best interests of the child. The complexity of integrating legal compliance pressures and administrative policy directives into the framework, however, led to inner conflict for many of the participants.