Disability Discrimination in Education: Investigating the ADR Experiences of Parents and Practitioners

Disability discrimination in schools is prohibited by state and federal anti-discrimination laws. If issues arise, complainants may seek redress through formal or informal complaint pathways. These pathways often utilise confidential alternative dispute resolution (‘ADR’), and as such, little is known about how the conflict inherent in such complaints is resolved, if at all. Despite this gap, the recent Royal Commission into Violence, Abuse, Neglect and Exploitation of People with Disability made recommendations to amend these laws without inquiring into how these complaints were resolved or whether the advantages of ADR are realised. This article employs thematic analysis to address this gap by exploring the experiences of two participant groups involved in these confidential education complaints about students with disability-related challenging behaviours: parent participants and resolution practitioners.