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Underachievement among gifted students of color: implications for educators
Theory Into Practice, Spring, 2005 by James L. Moore, III, Donna Y. Ford, H. Richard Milner
Similarly, when students present needs based on their race, gender, or socioeconomic status, it is important that school officials address them. To adequately understand or address these needs, educational professionals need to first ask themselves: (a) How does a student's culture affect his or her achievement? (b) How do the social needs of gifted students of color affect their achievement?, and (c) How do psychological needs affect the achievement of gifted students of color? To prevent or even reverse low achievement and underachievement among gifted students of color, educators must seriously consider their needs and development as human beings and the unique social and psychological issues they bring to educational setting related to their culture.
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Cultural Issues and Needs Related to Achievement
When focusing on the cultural needs and issues of students of color, it is essential that educational professionals address both deficit thinking and cultural diversity. Later, in discussing social and psychological needs, we address peer pressures, racial identity, and concerns experienced by students of color in school settings.
Cultural Misunderstanding and Deficit Orientations
According to Frasier and her colleagues (1995), attributes associated with giftedness may vary from student to student. Stated differently, the perception of giftedness and gifted education may not hold the same value for different racial and cultural groups. For example, one gifted student may display his inquisitiveness by asking a lot of questions regarding a scientific conceptualization or formula that he or she recently discovered, and another gifted student might ask many questions regarding the original source of the scientific conceptualization. A gifted White student may be concerned about the future related to the importance of recycling; a gifted student of color may be concerned more about an immediate need, such as the lack of sanitation services in his community.
Few teacher education programs have courses or require future educators to take more than one course on diversity and social justice in education, including teachers seeking gifted education preparation (Banks, 1995; Ford & Harris, 1999). Thus, educators are seldom formally prepared for identifying cultural characteristics and associated behaviors. As a result, educators may not recognize giftedness in students of color. This lack of cultural awareness has negative implications for students of color. For example, teachers may fail to recommend capable students of color for gifted education programs if these students exhibit disinterested behaviors or appear unmotivated. Out of naivete, teachers may neglect to use culturally relevant pedagogical approaches that are aligned with the learning styles of students of color. In both instances, students of color commonly underachieve (Ford, Grantham, & Milner, in press).
Although it is logical to assume that every teacher who pursues coursework in gifted education will learn about the characteristics of gifted students, it is not safe to assume that they will learn about the cultural and environmental factors that impede learning outcomes for students of color (Ford & Harris, 1998). It is critical that educators are exposed to culturally relevant teaching practices and that they learn how students' cultures interact, both positively and negatively, with school systems in general and gifted education in particular.
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