Undiscovered Diamonds: The Minority Gifted Child

Abstract

A disproportionately low number of minority students have been identified and placed in programs for gifted students. The realities of the situation relate to the attitudes of planners and teachers, the identification process itself, inadequate research verifying the use of appropriate identification tools, and an inadequate picture of how a program should be designed. Empirical research on identification and planning for the minority gifted child is sparse, but that which is available highlights the need for more extensive research in this area. Exploratory research using The Raven Matrices and chronometric devices as part of the identification process appear to hold promise for developing new hypotheses and proving or disproving those that are presently proposed. More flexibility of planning, more funding for research, more dissemination of information, and improved teacher training on how to recognize clues for identifying exceptional intellectual processing abilities are among the recommendations proposed here to alleviate the problem of discovering the gifted among minority populations.