Child Care and Children with Special Needs: Challenges for Low Income Families, Maine, United States, 2002-2005 (ICPSR 27001)
This project was a mixed-method, multi-level study of low income families of children with special needs and the system which served them, focusing primarily on child care, employment, and balancing work and family. This approach included an analysis of existing national and state-level data sets, statewide surveys of parents and child care providers, and a field study to look at these issues at the local level in three selected communities in the state of Maine: Portland, Lewiston/Auburn, and Presque Isle. While the primary focus was on access to child care, this project also looked at the related issues of welfare reform, the impact of work force participation on having a child with special needs, and the issue of coordination of early intervention services with the child care system. The goal was to understand better the issues facing low income families with special needs children across the programs and policies affecting their employment, access to child care, and meeting the special needs of their children. In the first year of the study, qualitative research was conducted to learn directly from parents about their experiences. In the second and third years, a field study of three communities was conducted as well as statewide surveys and analysis of national data bases to supplement the data collected in the first year. This data collection is comprised of the two quantitative data files produced during the second and third years of the study which are described in more detail below.
Child Care Provider Survey: The Child Care Provider Survey was a statewide survey of child care providers selected at random from the list of licensed providers in Maine given by the state licensing agency. Questions focused on the perspective of child care providers on the issues of access and inclusion that parents raised.
Parent Survey: The Parent Survey was a statewide survey of parents and children aged 0-18 years with diagnosed special needs (enrolled in Maine Care - Katie Beckett and Title V eligibility groups - and Child Development Services early intervention caseloads). Questions focused on child care utilization and work experiences in relation to children with special needs.
Researchers interested in information about the qualitative data should contact the Child Care and Children with Special Needs Project Web site.
Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report, Fall 1994 (ICPSR 2814)
Equality of Educational Opportunity (COLEMAN) Study (EEOS), 1966 (ICPSR 6389)
National Assessment of Educational Progress: 1987 High School Transcript Study (ICPSR 2256)
Office for Civil Rights School District File, 1968 [United States]: School Desegregation Database (ICPSR 3528)
Office for Civil Rights School District File, 1969 [United States]: School Desegregation Database (ICPSR 3529)
Office for Civil Rights School District File, 1970 [United States]: School Desegregation Database (ICPSR 3530)
Office for Civil Rights School District File, 1971 [United States]: School Desegregation Database (ICPSR 3531)
Office for Civil Rights School District File, 1972 [United States]: School Desegregation Database (ICPSR 3532)
Office for Civil Rights School District File, 1973 [United States]: School Desegregation Database (ICPSR 3533)
Project on Human Development in Chicago Neighborhoods (PHDCN): School Screen, Wave 1, 1994-1997 (ICPSR 13600)
A systematic discourse analysis of how U.S. political leaders frame disability: Implications for students with disabilities (ICPSR 307656)
This study examined how U.S. political leaders publicly framed disability during calendar year 2025, using a systematic discourse analysis of public statements and federal legislation. It also examined how this discourse was reflected in federal education policy, including statements by the Secretary of Education and education-related bills.
The study analyzed 121 public statements about people with disabilities made by White House and Cabinet officials, and 32 federal bills introduced in 2025 that could affect the rights, services, or educational opportunities of individuals with disabilities. Statements were identified through a two-stage process that combined a custom Python-based web-scraping tool, which extracted verbatim, attributed quotations from news articles, press releases, interview transcripts, official speeches, and social media posts using the OpenAI GPT-4 API, with manual verification searches conducted in ChatGPT Plus and Perplexity AI Pro. Federal bills were identified through Congress.gov. All statements were reviewed by the authors to confirm accuracy, attribution, and date. Each statement and bill was independently scored by two human coders and by GPT-4 using an author-developed four-point rubric grounded in the social and human rights models of disability, ranging from 1 (dehumanizing) to 4 (affirming).
The data contain one record per statement, including the speaker's name and title, date, verbatim quotation, source, context, an analysis of the framing, a score from 1 (dehumanizing) to 4 (affirming), and the rationale for the score. The bills data are available on the project website and are not included in this deposit.
The study was approved by the university Institutional Review Board (March 2025) and was preregistered on the Open Science Framework (https://osf.io/hbfe5/).