How Poverty Affects The Education of Talented Students: a Literature Review

Abstract

This study aims to examine the challenges gifted students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds face academically and gain insight into the underrepresentation in gifted students from poverty stricken areas due to program funding, testing and lack of resources. The exploration of the way those who are gifted and talented in poverty stricken communities understand their academic achievement gaps in comparison to those in more advantaged schools and communities.

Academic achievement in gifted and talented students from poverty stricken communities will be analyzed against more affluent communities to assess similarities and differences. Achievement differences by socioeconomic levels are especially challenging in undeveloped school systems typically in major cities and rural areas. Overall, the literature addresses the challenges gifted students frequently face due to their socioeconomic status.

Introduction

This study aimed to focus on the academic achievement gap in gifted and talented students in poverty stricken communities. Over the course of my findings there has been one common factor that has been an ongoing issue for decades. Minority students are underrepresented in gifted and talented education due to many factors. Many of these factors are attributed to poor attendance, under-qualified teachers, lack of resources and availability of programs in schools due to funding.

A proposed question: Does poverty affect gifted and talented academic achievement? According to a host of researchers, the academic achievement gap between impoverished students specifically minorities and their more affluent counterparts is a growing issue that is supported by standardized test scores, dropout rates and low college enrollment and graduation rate. These disproportion have been unchanging across ages of students from K-12. While the numbers continue to grow at an alarming rate, program funding and professional development have not been provided to close the academic gap.

Wyner, Bridgeland, and DiIulio (2007) tracked the performance of high-achieving lower income and high-achieving upper income students and found inconsistency at the beginning of elementary school. This ongoing adversity was even found on the college level as far as academic achievement, graduation rate and enrollment. How does impoverished schools challenge gifted students? While these students have the ability to perform academically, they struggled with lack of educational support and perform on national and state-wide tests far below then higher income gifted students. Most minority students are handicapped by the lack of educational support needed to thrive academically, while these students can perform on and above grade level, schools do not invest proper funding into gifted and talented curriculum. Underrepresentation of minorities in gifted and talented education and the large focus of their academic achievement gap is placed under the larger issues of funding, highly-qualified teachers, and segregation of schools based on socioeconomic status. Identifying potentially high-achieving students who are living in poverty can be a difficult task due to school bullying, absentees, lack of resources, limited access to outside opportunities and enrichment opportunities. This study will explore the challenges gifted students from lower socioeconomic backgrounds face academically and gain insight into the underrepresentation in gifted students from poverty stricken areas due to program funding, testing and lack of resources.

Discussion of key terms

Poverty

Poverty can be defined as being extremely poor or living in insufficient conditions. Those in poverty struggle to get their basic needs met in housing, communities and education. Burney, Beile, 2008 define poverty with the term “socioeconomic status (SES) which is also commonly used and refers generally to one’s relative standing in regards to income, level of education, employment, health, and access to resources.” (Burney, V. H., & Beilke, J. R., 2008).

Renzulli and Park, 2000 found in their research that low socioeconomic gifted students succumb to significant dropout rates related to their education aspiration and parent’s highest completed level of education (Renzulli, J.S., & Park, S., 2000). When high academic achieving and low socioeconomic minority students are given less access to gifted and talented education they lack interest in their education. These students aren’t provided with the right tools to engage them in their learning, ultimately creating a gap in their achievement. While pinpointing poverty stricken communities as the major issues, it is important to identify that all schools regardless of community based income have poor students.

Gifted

Giftedness may exist in more than one domains such as; intellectual, creativity, and self-motivation, or in a specific academic field of education. Yaluma, and Tyner states, “a student is considered to be “gifted and talented” when she or he performs at or has the potential to perform at a higher intellectual capability than other students”. Gifted is the ability to perform at higher performance than most. Baker and Friedman-Nimz, 2002 conducted a research that indicated that gifted and talented students were found across the nation but “students with higher socioeconomic who attend larger schools are more likely to have access to gifted and talented programs” (Baker,B.D., & Friedman-Nimz,R., 2002). Does poverty affect gifted and talented students' academic achievement? Researchers have found that poverty does affect their achievement due to programming and funding; regardless of the student’s academic ability.

High Achievement

Burney and Beilke, 2008 define high achievement as “a level of performance that is higher than one would expect for students of the same age, grade, or experience. Specifically, proficiency is demonstrated by successfully mastering content (instructional) material beyond what is considered to be a grade-level curriculum” (Burney, V. H., & Beilke, J. R., 2008). How are high achieving students showing low growth? Most impoverished schools do not have the funding to support their high achieving learning. In some cases researchers discovered that the students did grow but not large enough based on previous scores. Coleman and Cross, 2005 “ identify characteristics of high potential include rapid learning, complex thinking, and creative problem solving. Without academic support they are not fully growing to their highest potential. With the right resources, academic support and supportive learning community, gifted students have the ability to perform at a higher performance than most.

Underrepresentation

Underrepresentation trends are presented, along with methods for calculating underrepresentation and inequity (Ford, Donna.,2014). The underrepresentation of historically underserved student groups continues to be a phenomenon in gifted and talented programs. In a phenomenological study conducted by Michael-Caldwell, 2011, exploring teachers' and African American parents' perceptions of the underrepresentation of gifted African American students, four themes emerged from the study. Those themes are: (a) misperceptions regarding a student's race and ability; (b) the lack of parent awareness programs about issues related to gifted and talented education; (c) the need for professional development training related to the needs of minority gifted students; and (d) issues related to testing and assessment instrumentation. Minority students are extremely underrepresented in giftedness due to the lack of gifted education offered in schools. This too applies to rural areas. In a study conducted by Azano, Callahan, Missett, and Brunner, “gifted programs are overlooked and teachers aren’t provided with qualified materials to deliver instruction, which often causes gifted students to be overlooked and migrated in the regular curriculum. 

Literature Review

Many studies have been conducted on the achievement gap, with most findings pointing to how school and family variables affect Black students' achievement (Ford, D. Y., Grantham, T. C., & Whiting, G. W. (2008). In this study the achievement gap of gifted students in poverty stricken communities will be looked at to analyze the similarities and differences they share with more affluent students.

Limited Resources

Limited resources may be a problem, but lower socioeconomic people often have learned to make creative use of what they have. Adherence to tradition may hinder recognition of the need for a differentiated curriculum, but shared values and a sense of community can create the safe environment that gifted learners need to blossom. Understanding the Experiences of Gifted Teachers and Fidelity of Implementation in Rural Schools researched by Azano, Callahan, Missett, and Brunner (2014). The authors begin by discussing the number of students in America that attend schools in rural areas. These students are often overlooked in education policy despite well-documented limited financial resources and pervasive poverty. Researchers have found that relatively little is known about the experiences of gifted students in rural areas and even less about the teachers serving this population (Azano, Callahan, Missett, and Brunner, 2014). Teachers were asked to describe the program for gifted students in which they taught, how the programming for gifted students influenced their ability to meet the needs of gifted students, and if (and how) the curricular units influenced their ability to meet the needs of their rural students. Teachers indicated that funds were limited due to location. Limited funding is a pervasive reality in rural schools (Howley, Rhodes, & Beall, 2009; Malhoit, 2005). Teachers of gifted students may face additional challenges (Howley et al., 2009)—especially if their jobs are perceived as a “luxury” for districts already struggling to meet state or federal mandates. Plucker (2013) identified the factors of poverty, rural provincialism, limited resources, and negative perceptions of gifted programs, among others, as additional persistent challenges for delivery of services for gifted students in rural schools.

Achievement Gap

Numerous articles focus on the achievement gap in the United States among student groups despite government assessment programs and policies put in place to narrow the gap. Many factors inside and outside the education system contribute to these gaps, but researchers have consistently shown that black, Hispanic, and low-income students tend to enter school far behind their peers, and are then less likely to have access to quality education programming, such as gifted education. Millions of high-achieving lower-income students are found in urban, suburban, and rural communities all across America, reflecting the racial, ethnic, and gender composition of the nation's schools, These students dropout of high school at very low rates, and more than 90 percent enter college. There are fewer lower-income students achieving at the highest levels than there should be. Wyner, Bridgeland, Dilulio, 2007, suggest “among first-grade students performing in the top academic quartile, only 28 percent are from lower-income families, while 72 percent are from higher-income families“. Without differentiated programs for these different students, those who lag behind will miss out on the attention they need to catch up while students who are ahead will become bored and disengaged. Gifted-and-talented programs are a key source of enriched and accelerated academic opportunities for this latter group: the students who are performing--or could perform--well beyond their peers.

When high-achieving poor and minority students have less access to these special programs than do their peers, gifted education may exacerbate existing inequalities. To better understand the state of gifted education in the United States today and investigate the extent to which access and participation in gifted programs vary for different students, this report uses federal data to answer three key questions: (1) To what extent do high-poverty schools offer gifted-and-talented programs? (2) What proportion of students in such schools participates in those programs? and (3) How does student participation in those programs vary by race within schools, particularly high-poverty schools? The authors examine the extent to which schools report offering any gifted programming, analyzing schools by their poverty level and racial and ethnic composition. Next, they turn to student participation and representation, again with an eye toward the school's poverty level as well as student race and ethnicity.

Underrepresented

Minorities and those living in poverty tend to be underrepresented, due to school practices and gaps in their achievement. In a study, Donna Y. Ford found that “African American students are underrepresented in gifted programs by about 51 percent.” Results indicated that GPA, math and reading achievement test scores, final grades in the first summer of attendance, and SES were not significant factors. The authors suggest “that psychosocial variables may contribute to participation rates and advocates the need for follow-up studies with non-returning students.” What psychological and social issues do gifted and talented face in poor performing schools?

Summary

There are three central themes presented in the literature as cited in the preceding section: 

1. Low-income students are underrepresented in gifted and talented programs.
2. There is an academic achievement between low socioeconomic students and students from affluent school districts. 
3. The gap of high achieving, low growth students are due to lack of resources, support, and access to a well-funded gifted program. 

Researchers indicate that “poverty stricken communities have limited access to gifted programs.” Researchers also indicate that “students of color and in impoverished school districts still struggle to close the achievement gap even though they are identified as gifted.” In numerous articles, authors suggest that psychosocial variables may contribute to the low participation rates . While research proves that gifted students in lower socio economics have a larger gap in academic achievement in several states; It did not consider the financial investment that families place into their child's education. Research conducted by Konrich and Furstenberg explains that “the achievement gap between lower and higher income children is present at school entry and is stable and persistent as children progress through school.” While the widening of the gap may be in part due to increasing income inequality in the United States in general, research identifies another more significant factor—the investments of family resources in outside educational opportunities for children between lower and higher income families. The implication of the study shows that minority students from low-poverty schools tend to perform lower and have a greater academic gap than their affluent counterparts due to lack of resources, high-qualified gifted educators, and overall participation in programming.

References

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• Ford, D. Y., Grantham, T. C., & Whiting, G. W. (2008). Another look at the achievement gap: Learning from the experiences of gifted Black students. Urban Education, 43, 216–238.
• Howley, A., Rhodes, M., & Beall, J. (2009). Challenges facing rural schools: Implications for gifted students. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 32, 515-536.
• Malhoit, G. C. (2005, July). Providing rural students with a high quality education: The rural perspective on the concept of educational adequacy. The Rural School and Community Trust. Retrieved from http://www.ruraledu.org/user_uploads/file/Providing_Rural_Students.pdf
• Michael-Chadwell, S. (2011). Examining the Underrepresentation of Underserved Students in Gifted Programs from a Transformational Leadership Vantage Point. Journal for the Education of the Gifted, 34(1), 99–130. https://doi.org/10.1177/016235321003400105
• Plucker, J. A. (2013). Students from rural environments. In C. Callahan & H. Hertberg-Davis (Eds.), Fundamentals of gifted education (pp. 301-314). New York, NY: Routledge.
• Wyner, J. S., Bridgeland, J. M., & DiIulio, J. J., Jr. (2007). Achievement trap: How America is failing millions of high achieving students from low-income families. Lansdowne, VA: Jack Kent Cooke Foundation Civic Enterprises.
• Yaluma, C. B., & Tyner, A. (2018). Is There a Gifted Gap? Gifted Education in High-Poverty Schools. National Assessment of Educational Progress, 123