Bright, Tough, and Resilient—And Not in a Gifted Program

Abstract

Research, identification, and programs in gifted education have typically not accommodated the “tough bright,” described in this article as abused, neglected, and undernurtured—a subgroup in the “diversity” gifted education has been admonished to identify and serve. Qualitative analysis of language generated in structured interviews with a group of high-ability at-risk middle-school children (N = 11), who had not been identified for special programming, yielded information related to personal difficulties, perceived support, familiarity with danger and violence, home environment, school experiences, perceptions of the future, and resilience. Suggestions for identification and programming are based on findings in the study.