In this chapter, the authors discuss, humanize, and reimagine the vital need to focus on both equity and how culture matters in every aspect of GATE recruitment and retention efforts and at all levels, beginning in early childhood – identification and assessment, social-emotional, and psychological and academic needs and development. By ‘humanize,' the authors mean to educate school officials (e.g., administrators, counselors, teachers, and families) about the intellectual brilliance that resides within Black students whose gifts and talents are often overlooked, devalued, and rendered invisible in schools.
TopIntroduction
The underrepresentation of Black students in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) has been a pervasive sore spot and bane of existence for the field for decades. According to Ford (2013), Black students continue to be the most underrepresented students at the rate of almost 50%, followed by Hispanic students at around 40%. Combined, this is tantamount to over 500,000 Black and Hispanic students not receiving needed academic services. Ford (2011) and co-authors herein are concerned about these students underachieving and how this widens racial achievement and opportunity gaps nationally, locally, district-wide, and in buildings.
In this chapter, we discuss, humanize, and reimagine the vital need to focus on both equity and how culture matters in every aspect of GATE recruitment and retention efforts and at all levels, beginning in early childhood -- identification and assessment, social-emotional, and psychological and academic needs and development. By ‘humanize,’ we mean to educate school officials (e.g., administrators, counselors, teachers, and families) about the intellectual brilliance that we know resides within Black students whose gifts and talents are often overlooked, devalued, and rendered invisible in schools.
It is essential that P-12 educators understand that addressing underrepresentation must begin in the early grades and cultivated throughout the grades with an intentional focus on (1) Identification, testing, and assessment, (2) Curriculum and instruction, (3) Culture and classroom, (4) Social-emotional development, (5) Self-identity/cultural pride, and (6) Family relationships. For more attention to these six components of culturally responsive education, see Ford (2011). Due to space limitations, we focus on the first three and embed comments about the others in the following sections.