Working Conditions in Self-Contained Settings for Students With Emotional Disturbance

Students with emotional disturbance (ED) depend upon special education teachers (SETs) to use evidence-based practices (EBPs) to promote their well-being. SETs, in turn, depend upon school leaders to provide working conditions that support learning and implementation of academic and social EBPs. We conducted an integrative narrative review of research examining working conditions SETs experience serving students with ED in self-contained schools and classes, to better understand whether SETs in these settings experience conditions necessary to effectively implement academic and social EBPs. Our findings suggest that conditions necessary for learning and implementing EBPs are seldom present in these settings. In addition, the extant research on SETs’ working conditions in these settings is largely disconnected from research investigating teachers’ use of EBPs.