The identification of giftedness: A comparison of White, Hispanic, and Black families

A survey was sent to White, Hispanic and Black parents of children in the gifted and talented program of a large urban school district. The results indicated that there were few differences among the three parent groups in either the characteristics that had indicated to them that their child might be gifted, or in the attributes which they believed were current descriptors of their gifted child. Large group differences were present, however, between the White sample and the two minority group samples in the percentage of families who requested an evaluation of their child for possible placement in the gifted and talented program. Fewer of the minority parents made such a request. This factor could contribute to the underrepresentation of minority students in gifted pro-grams. The underrepresentation of minority and/or culturally different groups in programs for gifted and talented students continues to be a major problem (e.g., Baldwin, 1987a, 1987b; Klausmeier, Mishra, & Maker, 1987; Richert, 1987). Chinn and Hughes (1987) found that Black and American Indian children were overrepresented in special education programs and underrepresented in programs for the gifted and talented. These surveys also showed that Hispanics were underrepresented in gifted and talented programs. Identification of gifted children from minority groups is affected by a restricted definition of giftedness (Richert, 1987). When giftedness is defined by a specific cutoff score on a standardized intelligence test, it has been argued that the cultural bias of the standardized test will cause fewer minority children to be identified as gifted. Indeed, both the inappropriate use of standardized tests for initial screening or for subsequent evaluations, and their questionable validity with minority and/ or culturally different students are often cited as major factors contributing to the underidentification of these children in programs for the gifted and talented (Alvino, McDonnel, &amp