The (Conference) Room Where it Happens: Explaining Disproportional Representation in Gifted and Talented Education

The current study leveraged comprehensive data from a large school district to better understand the degree to which disproportional representation in gifted education can be explained by mean assessment score differences across racial and socioeconomic (SES) groups. The findings indicate that after controlling for nonverbal ability, cognitive ability, math achievement, reading achievement, and teacher ratings of gifted behaviors, Black students, Hispanic students, and students from low-income backgrounds are 1.3x to 5.4x more likely to be identified for gifted services than their similarly scoring Asian American or higher-SES peers. These results were found despite Black, Hispanic, and low-income students still being underrepresented within the gifted student population. This study has important implications for understanding and improving the equitable delivery of advanced learning opportunities.