Journal article
Naming Gifted Children: An Example of Unintended “Reproduction”
Journal for the education of the gifted, Vol.21(1), pp.82-100
10/1997
DOI: 10.1177/016235329702100105
Abstract
We asked classroom teachers from two middle schools in a Midwestern community (the teachers were Anglo-American but were teaching a sizable Latino minority) to recommend students for a temporary program for the “gifted.” Although teachers were given no guidelines for selection, they had no trouble discussing “giftedness” as a concept; nor did they have difficulty identifying “gifted” children. Their language revealed that they used the existing ideals and moralities of the dominant culture as their guide in assessing children's giftedness. Latino children, and those from other minority groups, were passed over. Nowhere in the discussion of “giftedness” did the teachers consider that their criteria for “excellence,” “talent,” and “ability” were culturally determined. Instead, teachers treated “giftedness” as if it were absolute, universally agreed upon, transcontextual and transcultural. These results show that vigorous and creative teacher education is needed to ensure proportionate representation of nonmainstream cultural groups in selective programs, and that teachers, who are often vocally opposed to social and educational inequities, unwittingly support the existing social order.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Naming Gifted Children: An Example of Unintended “Reproduction”
- Creators
- Jean Sunde Peterson - Truman State UniversityLeslie Margolin - University of Iowa
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journal for the education of the gifted, Vol.21(1), pp.82-100
- DOI
- 10.1177/016235329702100105
- ISSN
- 0162-3532
- eISSN
- 2162-9501
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 10/1997
- Academic Unit
- Counselor Education
- Record Identifier
- 9984371110802771
Metrics
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