Identifying and Serving Diverse Gifted Students: What Are The Roles Involved?

February 19, 2024

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Inclusion

Parents play a vital role in identifying and cultivating talent for diverse gifted children, but their experiences and the barriers they face with schools and educational leaders are rarely studied.

Parental Experiences Related to Their 2E Children

Recent studies exploring parental perspectives and experiences of 2E children found some common themes, including parents experiencing challenges related to gifted identification and receiving appropriate services for their children’s dual exceptionalities. They often feel the need to advocate for their children’s learning needs.

Contemporary studies on parental experiences related to identifying and serving CLED-gifted children are limited. However, interviews with 15 parents of gifted African American children in a large school district in California revealed parents’ dissatisfaction with educational interventions for their children. They were concerned about whether teachers and administrators had been adequately trained to educate students of color. They actively advocated for their children by conducting research, navigating the educational system, and seeking out additional resources. Interpersonal and institutional racism were noted as barriers.

Parental Involvement in the Process of Identifying and Supporting 2E Children

Six focus groups were conducted with 39 parents of K-12 children from culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse backgrounds (CLED) and/or identified as twice exceptional (2E) at Cypress School District (pseudonym), a medium-sized, diverse school district in the Southwestern region of the United States. The focus group discussions were led using a semi-structured interview protocol. Thematic analysis and its six-phase approach were used to analyze data. The researchers aimed to understand:

1. How do district and school leaders engage parents of diverse students in the gifted identification process?
2. What barriers and challenges do parents of diverse students experience in navigating the gifted identification process?
3. How and in what ways do parents advocate for their diverse students in gifted education or advanced academic programs?

It was found that (a) the majority of parents advocated for their gifted and talented children, (b) a lack of consistent and comprehensive strategies by educational leaders to promote parent engagement, (c) disproportionate communication from district leaders rendered engagement efforts less effective, (d) GT identification remained problematic for some parents, and (e) front-line educators served a critical role in the bilateral relationship between school and family. Implications are discussed for researchers and educational leaders.

Support Tends to Decline as Students Get Older

Two themes were apparent from the analysis: parental-teacher trust and programming conflict. Findings suggested uneven experiences between grade levels and schools for parents of CLED and 2E students within the district, where bi-directional communication and engagement related to the Gifted and Talented program peaked in elementary school and gradually declined through middle and high school. This became particularly difficult for parents of high school students who noted different values in AP and Gifted and Talented courses.

Participants noted that school leadership played a large role in the strength of a gifted and talented program as their enthusiasm and commitment to the program had a significant impact on program quality and the level of parent engagement.

Notable Quotes: 

“As one parent shared “I wasn’t part of the process; I was only a part of the end result.””

“Some parents perceived lack of information, irregularity of communication, and lack of transparency surrounding assessment processes and testing instruments as barriers.”

“Teachers frequently served as gatekeepers to testing.”

Personal Takeaway: 

This article highlighted the importance of the home-school connection and the trust between teachers and parents. It is particularly useful for educators working in the gifted and talented field as they can reflect on how their practices relate to the home-school connection. It also serves as a call to middle and high school educators to examine their gifted and talented programming and how it can complement other programming options that students are taking. —Matt Browne

Mun, R. U., Ezzani, M. D., & Yeung, G. (2021). Parent Engagement in Identifying and Serving Diverse Gifted Students: What Is the Role of Leadership?. Journal of Advanced Academics, 32(4), 533-566.