Abstract
Gifted students are often regarded as the privileged recipients of the best a school district has to offer. On the one hand, gifted students have access to the best teachers, the most rigorous curriculum, and the best postsecondary options. However, gifted Black students also face unique academic, social/emotional, and college/career challenges, and a lot of brilliant Black students are overlooked. A major thrust of this chapter is to identify some conditions or barriers that cause the underrepresentation of Black students in gifted education and offer recommendations to support student achievement.
TopIntroduction
Gifted students differ in many ways. However, researchers have identified several traits that are shared by many. Some gifted students experience asynchronous development, where the student’s emotional and social development is outpaced by their cognitive development; others display heightened sensitivity, perfectionism, or perceptiveness whereas others may produce innovative ideas by exploring alternate solutions (Lee et al., 2022; Piechowski, 2013; Peterson, 2018, 2021). According to Coleman (1985), gifted students experience a phenomenon known as “the stigma of giftedness” that includes the following three main attributes: 1) the desire to interact with others in a normal manner, 2) a concern that they will be treated differently as a result of their giftedness, and 3) a need to control the information others have about them.
Across the country, Black students are underrepresented in gifted education programs (Davis et al., 2020; Henfield et al., 2010; Owens et al., 2013; Owens et al., 2018). According to the United States Office of Education, Department of Civil Rights (2018), for 50 States, the District of Columbia, and Puerto, White students represent approximately 58% of the students in gifted education programs, whereas Black students comprise 8% of students in gifted education programs.
Not only are Black students underrepresented in gifted and talented programs, but many Black students within those programs are plagued with underperformance. Perfectionism, stereotype threat, and the need to belong are among some of the risk factors that contribute to the underachievement of gifted Black students. Many students of African descent are strongly oriented toward being a part of a community. As such, it may be especially important for them to feel a sense of belonging and affiliation. As a way of feeling similar to some of their peers, gifted Black students may choose to underachieve (Ford, 2011).
The concept of stereotype threat was developed by Steele and Aronson (1995) to describe the overwhelming fear of conforming to a negative societal stereotype of a group’s intellectual ability. Researchers explored the impact of stereotype threat on academic performance, anxiety, underachievement, and low self-efficacy (Burnette et al., 2010; Osborne, 2007; Steele & Aronson, 1995). They found stereotype threat to be negatively correlated with academic performance and perceived self-efficacy and was found to have a positive correlation with anxiety and underachievement.
As gifted Black students grapple with the frustrations of adjusting to the dominant cultural conventions, they often face difficulties related to perfectionism, which adversely impacts their ability to achieve academic success. According to Herman et al. (2011), negative maladaptive perfectionism is a type of perfectionism that is characterized by no motivation or ambition, a low sense of control, and a high degree of depression. Their research indicated that this type of perfectionism was most commonly found among African American youth.
Key Terms in this Chapter
Counselor Educators: Faculty focused on the preparation of counselors.
Intersectionality: is a term coined to describe overlapping or intersecting social identities and related systems of oppression, domination, or discrimination ( Crenshaw, 1989 ).
School Counselor: School counselors are individuals who hold a master’s degree in counseling and are licensed or certified.
Gifted: Students’ who display academic excellence and superior performance relative to their peers ( Subotnik et al., 2011 ).
Twice-exceptional Children-“2e learners have both exceptional ability and disability-developmental: learning, emotional, physical or sensory” (Children, 2021 AU148: The in-text citation "Children, 2021" is not in the reference list. Please correct the citation, add the reference to the list, or delete the citation. , p.10).
Anglocentrism: “An overarching worldview that advances the notion, implicitly and explicitly that (Western) European, particularly English, history, values, knowledge, and ways of being are not only normal but superior to all others” ( Hobson, 2012 ).