Inside and Outside Gifted Education Programming: Hidden Challenges for African American Students (Report‪)‬

In popular and scientific literature, researchers have documented the academic shortcomings of African Americans in K to 12 settings (Jackson & Moore, 2006; Moore, Ford, & Milner, 2005a, 2005b; Rothstein, 2004; Thernstrom & Thernstrom, 2003). In these educational settings, African American students trail their White and Latina/o peers in participation in gifted programs (Ford & Moore, 2004, 2005; Jackson & Moore; Moore, 2003). African American students are frequently missing from or underrepresented in accelerated academic programs. Even when African American students meet the minimum academic qualifications and obtain strong teacher and school counselor referrals, many choose not to participate in advanced, accelerated, or gifted education programs (Ford, 1996; Ford, Harris, Tyson, & Trotman, 2002; Moore et al., 2005a). For example, in 2000, fewer 12th-grade Black students took Advanced Placement (AP) examinations than their White or Hispanic counterparts. In 2003, fewer eighth-grade African American students took algebra courses than their White and Latina/o peers. In addition, in 2003, fewer 11th- and 12th-grade African American students took AP courses than White or Latina/o students (National Center for Education Strategies, NCES, 2003). A number of explanations in the research literature have attempted to clarify the reasons for the underrepresentation of African American students in gifted education programs. For example, some researchers have indicated that these students frequently lack access to, drop out of, or choose not to participate in gifted education programs for reasons ranging from low teacher expectations, lack of motivation to do the work, and fear of separation from their social or peer group to the perception that the gifted education environment is "the wrong place" for African American students (Ford, 1996; Moore et al., 2005a, 2005b; Staiger, 2004). It is interesting that many of these common explanations have racial underpinnings. Staiger's ethnographic study of a gifted magnet program in an urban California high school, for example, drew attention to the salience of ethnicity/race by explaining how, on the basis of her findings, ethnic minority students perceived that "giftedness was equivalent to whiteness" (p. 162). She further asserted that a glaring scarcity of ethnic minority students in gifted education programs is "likely to intensify the psychological damage that segregated schools had on minority children and that Brown v. Board of Education was supposed to overcome" (Staiger, pp. 161-162). Regardless of the rationalization, according to educational statistics, the presence of African American students in advanced classes, in general, and gifted education programs, in particular, is extremely rare (College Board, 2005; NCES, 2003).