Recruiting and Retaining Gifted Students from Diverse Ethnic, Cultural, and Language Groups.

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Chapter 15

• Recruiting and Retaining Gifted Students from
  Diverse Ethnic, Cultural, and Language Groups.

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A mind is a terrible thing to waste
United Negro Foundation

• The term gifted and talentedmeans students,
  children, or youth who give evidence of high
  achievement capacity in areas such as
  intellectual, creative, artistic, or leadership
  capacity, or in specific academic fields, and who
  need services or activities not ordinarily
  provided by the school in order to fully develop
  those capabilities.
• (Title IX, Part A, Section 9101 (22) (p.544).

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Problem

• One of the most persistent and pervasive problems
  in education is the under representation of
  African American, Hispanic American, and Native
  American students in Gifted Education programs
  and services.

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Statistics

• Since at least the 1930s reports and studies have
  revealed these culturally diverse students have
  ALWAYS been inadequately represented in gifted
  education
• (Artiles, Trent, and Palmer, 2004 Donovan and
  Cross, 2002 Ford, 1998, 2004).
• African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native
  Americans are under represented by 50 to 70
  percent.
• (U.S. Dept. of EDU, 1993 Elementary and
  Secondary Schools Civil Rights Survey, 1998
  2000).

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REALITY a mind is a terrible thing to erase

• Thus, many African American, Hispanic American,
  and Native American students are gifted but their
  gifts often go unidentified.
• They are neither challenged nor given the
  opportunity to develop their gifts and talents.
• STOP! What is this violating?
• Gifted students are unlikely to develop without
  appropriate services.

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Guiding Questions to Focus on

• Keep in Mind!
• How can we recruit and retain more racial and
  ethnic minority students in gifted education?
• How can we have gifted education programs that
  are both excellent and equitable?

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Recruitment Issues and Barriers

• Assumption
• That racial and ethnic minority students are
  under represented because of problems associated
  with screening and identification instruments,
  specifically tests.

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Recruitment Issues and Barriers

• Where do we begin?
• The 1st step in addressing (or redressing) the
  under representation of racial and ethnic
  minority students in gifted education is to focus
  on Recruitment.
• What is Recruitment?
• Screening, identification, and placement.

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Recruitment Issues and Barriers

• Why is this an issue?
• Perceptions about racial and ethnic minority
  students combined with a lack of cultural
  understanding significantly undermine the ability
  for educators to recruit diverse students into
  gifted education and to retain them.

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Cultural Deficit

• Deficit Thinking
• The more we retreat from the culture and the
  people, the less we learn about them. The less we
  know about them, the more uncomfortable we feel
  among them. The more uncomfortable we feel among
  them, the more inclined we are to withdraw. The
  more we withdraw from the people, the more faults
  we find with them. The less we know about their
  culture, the more we seem to dislike it. And the
  worst of it is that, in the end, we begin to
  believe the very lies weve invented to console
  ourselves.
• (Storti, 1989, pp.32-34)

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Deficit Thinking

• Hinders the ability and willingness of educators
  to recognize the strengths of students from
  diverse ethnic, racial, and language groups.
• Exists when educators interpret differences as
  deficits, disfunctions, and disadvantages.
• Focus is on the shortcomings or weaknesses rather
  than strengths.

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Deficit Thinking Example

• A student who speaks nonstandard English
• Gets get grades
• However, may not be referred to screening and
  identification if the teacher neither understands
  nor appreciates nonstandard English.

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Deficit Thinking Moving Forward

• EVERY STUDENT HAS STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES.
• Educators must move beyond a deficit orientation
  in order to recognize the strengths and potential
  of racial, ethnic, and language minorities.

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Deficit Thinking Further Influence

• Deficit thinking has also influenced the
  definition of policies, and practices. It
  contributed to past beliefs about race,
  ethnicity, and intelligence.
• Example
• Human races Ranked in a linear scale of mental
  worth.
• Immigration Educators resorted to increased
  reliance on biased standardized tests. These
  tests almost guaranteed low test scores for
  immigrates and racial and ethnic minority groups
  who were unfamiliar with U.S. customs,
  traditions, values, norms, and language (Ford,
  2004).

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Becoming Aware

• Deficit Thinking
• Teacher biases and stereotypes
• Lack of Understanding

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What You as a Teacher Can Do

• Become more aware!
• Recruitment for gifted students should start as
  early as preschool!
• Standardized tests/ Assessments should be more
  culturally sensitive.
• Multicultural Curriculum
• Focus on STRENGTHS!
• Discard Monolithic definitions or definitions of
  giftedness that ignore the fact that what is
  valued as giftedness in one culture may not be
  valued in another.

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• Deficit Thinking
• Has No Place in Education