Racial‐ethnic differences in educational trajectories for individuals with intellectual disability.

Background: Racial‐ethnic differences in educational attainment have not been explored among adults with intellectual disability (ID). Because adults with ID and racial‐ethnic minority groups have been historically marginalised from educational pathways through life, they have likely experienced cumulative disadvantage. Therefore, investigating the intersection of ID and race‐ethnicity is necessary to increase understanding of educational attainment among adults with ID. Methods: Using 1986–2017 National Health Interview Survey data, we examined the educational trajectories of adults with ID, stratified by race‐ethnicity (N = 4610). Generalised ordered logistic regression models were utilised to estimate the effect of birth cohort on educational attainment by race‐ethnicity among adults with ID. Results: Results support prior findings that educational attainment increased for adults with ID around the 1950–1959 birth cohort; however, this was only the case for non‐Hispanic Whites. For racial‐ethnic minority groups, the probability of attaining a high school degree did not increase until comparatively later birth cohorts: non‐Hispanic Black adults did not have their largest gains in educational attainment until the 1960–1969 birth cohort; Hispanic adults did not have their largest gains in attainment until the 1980–1999 birth cohort. Conclusion: This study provides evidence of improvements in educational attainment for all adults with ID across birth cohorts. However, racial‐ethnic disparities were also present – educational attainment levels for non‐Hispanic Blacks remained lower than for non‐Hispanic Whites across all birth cohorts in the study. Hispanics were able to catch up to and surpass both non‐Hispanic Whites and non‐Hispanic Blacks by the end of the study period, despite lower levels of education in the early birth cohorts. Results from this study highlight the need to attend to race‐ethnicity when examining educational outcomes among adults with ID. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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