Identifying gifted students from underrepresented populations

Carolyn M. Callahan

The identification of gifted and talented students from those populations that are underrepresented in programs for the gifted (minorities, children from low socioeconomic status environments, students with limited English speaking ability) is a problem that needs to be examined as the complex issue that it is rather than as a problem that can be solved with a single, silver-bullet answer. In examining this issue, the first step is to look at the interrelated factors that influence the process: definitions of giftedness, the use of 1-shot paper-and-pencil assessments, the inherent biases in policies and procedures, and the lack of coordination of curriculum with identification and placement procedures. Then, critical steps in bringing about change can be proposed. The solutions proposed are structured around increased advocacy for underrepresented students and attention to current research.

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THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES (Donovan & Cross, 2002) documented that, although there has been an increase in the representation of American Indian and Native Alaskan, Black, and Hispanic students identified as gifted, the underrepresentation of these groups continues to plague our educational system. The report points out that, although there is considerable variation among states, Black and Hispanic students are less than half as likely to be in gifted programs as White students, and American Indian and Native Alaskans fall between Blacks and Whites. The National Excellence report (U.S. Department of Education, 1993) documented the underrepresentation of low-income students with National Education Longitudinal Study data indicating that only 9% of students in gifted and talented programs were categorized in the bottom quartile of family income.

The issues faced by administrators, teachers, and policy makers who seek to validly and reliably identify gifted and talented students from underrepresented populations of ethnic minority and low-income students are too often oversimplified or uncoupled from one another--resulting in unsuccessful and frustrating efforts that disappoint and discourage those who attempt to redress the inequities. The attempts to find a single, silver-bullet solution in the form of a new test or a single new policy (such as a quota system) result in controversy over the adequacy of processes and procedures, in criticisms of the validity of the process, and in conflicts between the majority and minority populations. The more appropriate approach is to view the situation as a complex interaction of factors, such as inadequate opportunities for talent development, the inadequacy of one-shot, paper-and-pencil assessments, the inherent bias and shortcomings of policies and procedures surrounding the identification of gifted students, and the lack of connections between the identification criteria and the curriculum and services offered to gifted students. Close examination of these factors has led to promising solutions that have been documented in the literature on identification and through analyses of successful practices implemented in innovative projects funded by the Jacob K. Javits Gifted and Talented Students Education Act (Callahan, Tomlinson, & Pizzat, 1994). To understand why these solutions have the power to change the landscape of gifted programming, we have to first examine the ways the identified factors have negatively framed and impacted the identification of gifted students from minority and poor groups of students.

Inadequate Opportunities for Talent Development

Inadequate opportunities for talent development are the result of erroneous beliefs translated into detrimental practice. The two beliefs that mitigate against adequate talent development are: (a) the belief that it is the role of gifted and talented programs to serve only those children that parents bring to the school door "signed, sealed, and delivered" as gifted; and (b) inherent beliefs about the low capabilities of poor and minority children. Despite the clear statements in national policy documents that outstanding talents and abilities are present in students from all cultural, ethnic, and economic backgrounds (U.S. Department of Education, 1993), the more common belief is that there are few students who come from ethnic minority groups or from families in poverty who are capable of developing into gifted children and adults or of exhibiting gifted behaviors. In fact, there is a strong, erroneous belief that most of these children are so lacking in prerequisite basic skills or abilities that such development is highly unlikely (Clasen, 1994; Dusek & Joseph, 1983; Frasier, Garcia, & Passow, 1995; McCarty, Lynch, Wallace, & Benally, 1991). As a consequence, the focus of instruction for these children becomes mired in low-level, drill-and-kill practice of mundane, uninteresting, and unmotivating learning tasks. The children in these classrooms are never exposed to and are not given the opportunity to explore their ability to be creative, critical, analytic, and high-level thinkers and problem solvers in the school environment. Without the opportunity to experience the kinds of tasks associated with the development of these abilities, the likelihood that children will exhibit such skills in classrooms or on tests are severely diminished. In addition, focus on performance at low-level basic skills for success on basic skill assessment tools may result in the uninteresting practice of test-taking skills and limited options to express oneself using any modality other than paper-and-pencil. As a result, we may decrease motivation among these students to participate in schooling at all.

One underlying reason behind diminished beliefs in the potential of ethnic minority and low-income students lies in strong acceptance in the educator population of very narrow and internally determined conception of intelligence and giftedness. Within the American public schools, giftedness is associated largely with traditional school skills and characteristics measured by traditional intelligence and achievement tests--advanced vocabulary, highly developed verbal skills in written and oral expression in Standard English, and early and advanced reading skills (Gallagher & Gallagher, 1994). Children who come to school without having had the opportunity to develop and practice these skills are quickly labeled "at-risk" and categorized as "less able." Seldom are teachers provided the skills in discerning either (a) alternative ways in which students may be gifted, or (b) ways to identify verbal talents that may exist in students who have not had opportunities to develop fluency and advanced expressive abilities in formal English.

Solution 1: Expand Conceptions of Intelligence and Giftedness

The first step in addressing the issues identified previously is the examination and expansion of the ways in which we conceptualize the notions of aptitude and intelligence, such as those offered by cognitive and developmental psychologists, including Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg. Gardner's (1991) study of creative and productive adults provides useful constructs of intelligence that include the verbal--linguistic realm already accepted by educators, but extend the range of consideration of giftedness to those with logical--mathematical talent, spatial abilities, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal talents. Sternberg's (1986) conceptions include analytic, practical, and synthetic (creative) intelligence. These intelligences are not divorced from performance in the disciplines we include in our school curriculum, but provide a basis for consideration of the different ways in which children (and ultimately adults) are best able to know, understand, and finally to express themselves in the disciplines.

Of equal importance is the ability to see giftedness as something other than pure precocious behavior or genius that must exhibit itself across all realms of performance for the child to be considered gifted. Giftedness is not a trait that demands that a child exhibit outstanding abilities in all areas. Children may be gifted or talented in just one area of performance. Some children may be quite talented in mathematics, but not in reading or writing for example.

Solution 2: Provide Exemplars of Gifted Performance and Use the Identification Process To Enhance Understanding

Because teachers are often gatekeepers (Archambault et al., 1993; Donovan & Cross, 2002) and, thus, have the potential to become advocates for gifted students in the nomination, screening, and identification of gifted students from underserved populations, it is important they are provided with examples of how the various talents, both the traditional verbal--linguistic and analytic intelligence as well as the less known alternative talents, may manifest themselves in performance outside of the typical indicators as manifest in reading and writing in formal English. In particular, we must provide examples of students from target populations in classroom settings exhibiting the behaviors associated with all aspects of talent, including nontraditional examples of verbal ability. These examples may be in writing or may be presented as video clips for additional context.

We must also involve teachers in the descriptions of the manifestations of giftedness in multiple cultural groups and in gathering relevant examples of various components and descriptions of the array of behaviors that illustrate the various talent domains (Ford & Harris, 1999; Frasier & Passow, 1994). Their participation will give them ownership of the new conception. Although participation in the process of developing illustrations of gifted behaviors has the potential to expand their understanding, it also serves to create additional messengers in the dissemination of understandings about the existence of talent in underserved populations.

Solution 3: Develop a program for Talent Development

A carefully constructed program of talent development based on student interest, highly relevant and motivating tasks, and the use of high-level and sophisticated thinking skills should be instituted in the primary grades. Renzulli, Gentry, and Reis (2003) have proposed one model of engaging all children in an enrichment curriculum that fits these criteria (Enrichment Clusters). The activities in these core units are built around the real world and relevant to the lives of the children. The Parallel Curriculum Model (Tomlinson et al., 2000) provides examples of ways the core curriculum can be used as a basis for creating such learning tasks while continuing to attend to the standards that drive the school curriculum and assessment programs in schools.

Solution 4: Identify Early and Often

The research literature on achievement of ethnic minority groups demonstrates that, although gaps exist between students from middle-class, White populations and poor, minority populations on measures of readiness to learn and achievement in the early grades, those gaps increase dramatically over time (Donovan & Cross, 2002). If we act quickly in the early years to identify signs of exceptional performance and nurture that performance in appropriately enriched, challenging environments, we may be able to prevent the diminished performance over time and stand a far greater chance of enhancing achievement and the development of talent.

On the other hand, a talent-development model may be instrumental in the emergence of talents in other children so we should not be content with a one-time identification plan. Rather, we should develop strategies for on-going, persistent talent searches. The light that peeks out from under the bushel as a result of the hard work to light a fire must be fed before subsequent lack of stimulation snuffs it out. We must be continually alert for indicators of talent and act on signs of emerging capability.

Inadequacy of One-Shot, Paper-and-Pencil Assessment

The measurement field has long warned against the use of one test or one assessment score as the basis of making a high-stakes judgment about a child. However, in a world where intelligence tests are inappropriately used as the sole or primary indicator in identifying gifted students, and where many children have not had the opportunity to develop the skills or had the cultural experiences to perform well on traditional aptitude or intelligence tests, there has emerged a desperate search for the culture-fair test or the unbiased rating scale. Unfortunately, these efforts reflect an attempt to find an unsatisfactory alternative to an unsatisfactory situation. Any single test or any single attempt to gather data about a child to substitute for intelligence tests that are already inadequate for identifying giftedness seems futile at best and disingenuous at worst (National Association for Gifted Children, 2004). Further, any attempt to gather a test score that simply will be high enough to warrant inclusion in a gifted program diminishes the probability that finding nontraditional students in this fashion will help identify students who will benefit from the challenge of a gifted curriculum. The frantic search simply for high test scores belies the principle that we are seeking information that will guide us in providing appropriate instructional interventions. We could get high test scores by choosing totally invalid measures, but we would be no further ahead in our quest to identify children with high potential.

Solution 5: Use Valid and Reliable Tools

The most critical step in choosing the assessment tools to assess the talents of any student is that the tools must present evidence of reliability and validity. Too often, we have accepted tools without seeking to ensure that a rating scale is reliable and valid. Would the rating scale yield about the same score if completed by two teachers who knew the child equally well? Would the same teacher rate the child about the same on 2 different days? And more important, is the instrument valid? Do scores on this instrument really reflect the definition of giftedness we are using? And do scores on the instrument predict that the child will be successful in the proposed differentiated curriculum? (American Educational Research Association, American Psychological Association, & National Council on Measurement in Education, 1999).

Solutions 6: Use Authentic Assessments

The use of assessment tools that emphasize genuine performance tasks that are part of the child's world--problems that a child can see as real problems and potential solutions to real challenges--have greater face validity for children who are threatened by, turned off by, or otherwise inadequately assessed by paper-and-pencil intelligence, aptitude, or achievement tests that contain items not related to their everyday existence or to the kinds of performance that has been common for the majority child. Clasen and Middleton (1991), for example, used problems that might be encountered in school (e.g., school truancy) and home (e.g., a crisis while caring for younger children) to assess the creative problem-solving ability. By creating and then assuring reliability and validity of alternative, authentic assessments, and collecting data over time, educators will have the opportunity to observe the ways children respond to more open-ended, real-life, challenging, and complex tasks.

Solution 7: Gather Data Over Time and Use Portfolios

Earlier discussions of the issues of lack of preparedness for the school climate and the educational expectations of traditional classrooms suggest that it may be critical to gather data on how students respond to the high-level curriculum. When I was a child, the band director came to our fifth grade class with an instrument called a tonette and gave us lessons in playing simple and then more complex musical pieces on the instrument. Over time, he determined by watching our progress how quickly individuals were responding to the new experience and made recommendations on our future in the band. Similarly, as teachers in the talent-development process, we should be watching how children respond to the high-level challenge of tasks that go beyond the basics to require creativity, critical thinking and analysis, complex thinking, and in-depth inquiry. Documenting this development in a portfolio that includes commonly assigned tasks and student-selected tasks will provide information that is validly indicative of the child's potential to continue to excel at such tasks.

Policies and Procedures That Interfere with Finding Gifted Ethnic Minority and Low-Income Students

Prior discussions have alluded to some policies and procedures that inhibit the identification of underserved students, including policies that dictate narrow definitions of giftedness and the use of particular identification tools or procedures. Other funding, staffing, placement, and program option policies may further constrain full talent searches.

Solution 8: Eliminate Policies or Practices That Limit the Number Served in The Gifted Program

One of the most inhibiting factors in expanding services to minority and low-income students is the belief that there is a magic number of gifted and talented students who can be served by the gifted program. First, it is critical to begin to consider a continuum of gifted services and to modify the curriculum according to student needs (Treffinger, Wittig, Young, & Nassab, 2003). Second, the number of gifted students is not a given and is not fixed in any community. The competition for slots naturally sets up an artificial conflict between those who are traditionally identified and those who might emerge through alternative procedures. When a continuum of services model is implemented, all gifted students can be served.

Solution 9: Rewrite Procedures for Nomination, Screening, and Identifying to Reflect an Inclusive, Expanded Definition of Giftedness

Policies for the process of identifying and placing gifted students should be formulated on the premise of multiple avenues and paths into and through the identification process. For example, a nomination or screening process that relies on teachers only for inclusion of children in the next stage of the identification process is flawed because teachers are not always able to see alternative manifestations of giftedness because they never provide the opportunity in instruction for behaviors associated with giftedness to be displayed. Or, they may hold such narrow personal conceptions of giftedness that they cannot acknowledge those alternative manifestations as falling in the category of gifted behaviors. Likewise, to only rely on test scores is to chance missing those children who insightful teachers can and do recognize but for whom traditional assessments may yield biased, unsatisfactory, and invalid results.

Policies that leave parents or guardians out of the identification and placement process, except in gathering permission to test or place, may miss opportunities to involve parents in ways that will give them a buy-in and an understanding of the process and the program that may later yield greater interest in participation. Minority parents who see the process as yielding data that will lead to careful consideration of all their child's needs (e.g., academic, social, and emotional) may be more willing to encourage a child to participate. Or, they may be able to provide more active and effective support to a child who struggles to adapt to new challenges or one who worries about being singled out from peers.

Data interpretation policies and procedures must also be examined. For example, the use of a matrix where each bit of data is given an arbitrary score (e.g., IQ > 150 = 5 points in the matrix) and then scores are added will result in giving greater weight to those data points with the most variability, and those are usually standardized test scores. Within this pseudoscientific process, there is also a tendency to give greater weight to the measures most traditionally highly valued and to fail to see duplications in weighting (e.g., weighing both the reading score and the total score derived from an achievement battery).

Failure to Coordinate Identification and Programming

One of the most serious flaws of all is the failure to ensure that the identification process is used to gather and interpret information about students that will lead to clear guidelines for modifications in educational services and curriculum. Too often, the process of identification yields only a label and assignment to a predetermined curricular or programming option without consideration of the educational needs that have been identified, the particular motivations or personalities of the students, or the cultural or peer pressures that a student may face. The design of a program for a gifted student, like that of any exceptional child, should reflect an opportunity to engage students in curriculum that will stimulate, challenge, motivate, and enhance the development of the student (U.S. Department of Education, 1993). To engage in identification of underserved students for placement in programs that do not consider those students' needs is to engage in educational malpractice likely to lead to failure for both the student and the system.

Solution 10: Match Curriculum and Services to the Identification Procedure

Implementation of earlier suggestions for data collection that go beyond the use of a single, invalid test score and that allow for close and careful child study will not only be useful in finding more gifted and talented students from underrepresented populations, it will also provide data that allow for more careful case-study examination of students and the opportunity to design educational programs that meet the needs of the identified students. We may find, for example, that some students need transitional gifted programs (S. N. Kaplan, personal communication, April 11, 2004). Kaplan has suggested that gifted students from traditionally underrepresented groups may need a curriculum that provides for sophisticated, complex, and deep thinking, but that also provides the bridge or scaffolding that students need to learn the language, the lingo, the insider knowledge, and the keys to success to make the transition from the regular curriculum to the gifted or differentiated curriculum, while engaging in tasks the students identify as relevant and motivating. Further, if these students are gifted underachievers, they will need additional academic support to redress shortcomings in skills; or motivational supports may be necessary; or counseling may be necessary if peer pressures are negative and influencing the students to lower their achievement levels.

Conclusion

The identification of gifted and talented students serves no good function if it does not lead to the opportunity for the students to maximize their potential by engaging in learning that will lead to a satisfying and fulfilled life. The process of identification must provide the opportunity for educators to bring forth the best in students, to recognize and then help the student capitalize on the talents identified. Hence, looking for means of identifying the underrepresented gifted students requires more than a surface-level examination of tests or rating scales. It requires examination of deeply held beliefs and longstanding practice, as well as a willingness to restructure thinking and behavior through not just one small alteration in process, but a fundamental restructuring of modes of thinking, beliefs, philosophy, and behaving.

References

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Archambault, F. X. Jr., Westberg, K. L., Brown, B. W., Hallmark, C. L., Emmons, C. L., & Zhang, W. (1993). Regular classroom practices with gifted students: Results of a national survey of classroom teachers (Research Monograph 93102). Storrs: University of Connecticut, National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Callahan, C. M., Tomlinson, C. A., & Pizzat, P. M. (1994). Context for promise: Noteworthy practices and innovations in the identification of gifted students. Charlottesville: University of Virginia, National Research Center on the Gifted and Talented.

Clasen, D. R. (1994). Project STREAM: Support, training, and resources for the education of able minorities. In C. M. Callahan, C. A. Tomlinson, & P. M. Pizzat (Eds.), Context for promise: Noteworthy practices and innovations in the identification of gifted students (pp. 1-21). Charlottesville: University of Virginia, Curry School of Education.

Clasen, D. R., & Middleton, J. (1991, May). Identifying minority students: An analysis of project STREAM talent identification model. Paper presented at the Henry B. and Jocelyn Wallace National Research Symposium on Talent Development, Iowa City, IA.

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Treffinger, D. J., Wittig, C. V., Young, G. C., & Nassab, C. A. (2003). Enhancing and expanding gifted programs. Waco, TX: Prufrock Press.

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Carolyn M. Callahan is a professor in the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia.

Requests for reprints can be sent to Carolyn M. Callahan, Department of Ed Leadership, Found. & Policy, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400265, Charlottesville, VA 22904. E-mail: cmc@virginia.edu

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