How verbally gifted students describe and interpret critical incidents in their school experiences: A symbolic interaction study

This exploratory study presents stories of school incidents that were reported by thirty-four high school gifted informants. Through ethnographic interviews, informants provided detailed descriptions of critical incidents at school, how they made sense of these events, and how these meanings influenced their feelings about school and their achievement behaviors in school. The assumptions of this qualitative study imply the informants\u27 own perspectives of school events provide a basis for understanding how school practices and programs are interpreted by able learners. Symbolic interactionism, a research tradition derived from the Chicago School of the 1920\u27s and more recently applied in educational research, provided a conceptual framework for the study. Textbase Alpha, a qualitative analysis program, provided the means for online coding and retrieval of segments from the transcribed interviews. Coded segments of the interviews were clustered into categories within three overall domains within symbolic interactionism--interactions, meaning, and behaviors. Verification was accomplished through member checks with informants, peer examination of the coding process, an external auditor, memos and journals, and extensive peer collaboration throughout the data collection and analysis process. The domain of interactions consisted of informants\u27 interactions with teachers, peers, and institutional routines in classroom settings--the primary type of interactions considered for this study. In the domain of meanings, informants described four meaning themes that served as filters through which interactions were translated into behaviors. Informants elaborated meaning systems about self efficacy, a sense of belonging, school as boring/challenging and school as rigid/flexible. In the behavior domain, informants described five themes in classroom achievement--Authentic Achievement, Qualified Achievement, Alternative Achievement, Coping, and Resignation. Cultural themes emerged from the findings to reflect the informants\u27 perspectives of school: caring, grades, boredom, behavior modification, learning styles, fault, and whatever. Twelve working hypotheses for further research concluded this study