Understanding and Promoting the Transition of Minority Adolescents

Qualitative and quantitative methodologies were used to investigate the barriers minority families encountered as their adolescent youth with disabilities move into adulthood and to identify what issues or goals are most important to families during this time of transition. The qualitative study consisted of focus groups or interviews with adolescents and their family members from Native American, African American and Hispanic communities. The transcripts were coded by a multicultural research team. The analysis of the coding revealed seven key themes: (a) insensitivity/discrimination; (b) lack of accommodations; (c) unresponsive services/supports; (d) typical adolescent issues; (e) contextual barriers; (f) desire for optimum capability and (g) the importance of family and family values. A survey designed to corroborate the findings of the qualitative study was completed by 308 African American, Hispanic, Native American and Euro-American parents who rated the extent to which certain barriers, experiences or issues around transition were true for their child. The quantitative results were generally consistent with the qualitative findings, suggesting that minority adolescents, overall, appear to encounter greater barriers to transition than do their nonminority peers.