Primary Teachers' Conceptions of Giftedness

Abstract

This article focuses on the first phase of a recent National Research Center on Giftedness and Talented (NRC/GT) project, which used survey research to target a disproportionate nationally stratified random sample of primary grade teachers about their beliefs and practices related to talent development in young children and their responses to case studies describing four different types of students—one easily identified as gifted from a traditional paradigm; the others manifested talents masked by some other factor—poverty, language status, or concurrent social/emotional needs. The mixed-method survey design facilitated triangulation of findings to better understand the contextual factors that influence primary grade teachers' perceptions and behaviors. Findings indicate that primary grade teachers continue to hold traditional conceptions of talent that shapes how they view cultural minority students, nonnative English speakers, and children with other exceptionalities. These beliefs influence the types of academic, social, and programmatic interventions they believe diverse primary grade learners need, often seeing the deficits before identifying the talents.