Giftedness Is an Intellectual Ability

¶ … Giftedness is an intellectual ability that is significantly higher than average, not a skill, but an innate talent and aptitude that may be general or specific. Just as there are special needs for children who appear on the left side of the bell curve, so should there be for children on the far right. However, these students are often neglected in terms of special programing due to beliefs that they can just do "extra work" within a mainstreamed environment. From the 1920s to the 1970s, the trend in Western countries was to set up special schools to educate those who fell outside the norms of the bell curve, but by the 1980s most educators favored merging special and regular education in a comprehensive program that included students from all backgrounds -- in other words, mainstreaming them into a regular classroom environment. This idea, though, must also fit within the cultural precedents of the time; educators must respond to the needs of the nation and public education remains responsible for meeting the needs of all students in society. -- Stories abound regarding very bright people who were told by their teachers that they were "stupid," or "unteachable." Einstein, Isaac Newton, Thomas Edison, Louis Pasteur, and more. Because gifted children are able to compensate so well, often they have learning issues that remain hidden and/or undiagnosed. Typically, though, general behavior characteristics for the gifted include: learning to read and comprehend earlier; a desire to read widely and manifest robust vocabularies; learn basic skills with less practice; are more sensitive to non-verbal clues; and want to go beyond the what, into the how and why (Winner, 1996).

Because giftedness is not always easy to verify since it is not simply scores on standardized tests, but a combination of learning styles, cognitive development, and acumen, one of the interesting research questions is how a child's ethnic background may have an effect on a teacher referral into a gifted program. Previous research shows that giftedness shows up in all populations, but the fact is that well over three-quarters of the American teaching force are of European descent.

A study by Elhoweris, Mutua, Alsheikh and Holloway (2005), used stratified cluster sampling to ascertain just that question. The sample was drawn from 16 elementary schools from three distinct geographical quadrants of a large Midwestern city school district. The sample included 207 elementary school teachers; 92% of whom were female and 83% of European descent. The study instrument was a short descriptive vignette about a student who possessed the research-based profile of a gifted and talented student. 1/3 of the participants were told this student was European-American, 1/3 that the student was African-American, and 1/3 no information on ethnicity (control group). After reading the prose, teachers were asked to rank levels of agreement towards statements recommending that student into a gifted program.

The results of the study showed that a student's ethnicity does make a difference in the referral decisions of teachers. The sample teachers treated identical information contained in the prose differently despite the fact that the information was the same except for the notation of student ethnicity. The results of this study suggest that teachers were relying on informal information when making decisions about academic ability; sadly coordinating with previous literature on the subject.