What+does+Cultural+Diversity+mean+for+the+Gifted+and+Talented?

What does Cultural Diversity mean for Gifted and Talented Students?

What exactly does cultural diversity mean?

As explained by Dictionary.com:

Culture is the behaviors and beliefs characteristic of a particular social, ethnic, or age group.

Diversity is variety, multiformity, or unlikeness.

If put together, cultural diversity is the grouping of different beliefs, values, and traditions into one setting. (This is a perfect description of America!) America has been described as the "melting pot" of the world. Almost all walks of life can be found in the United States ranging from race to religion. Modern transportation devices such as cars, planes, and ships have broken the once imaginary and in some cases real walls that segregated different races of people.

So which one do we claim to be THE AMERICAN CULTURE? The predominant race in the United States in white. From the early days of American history, the white race has had complete majority of the population. Due to this fact, the culture of the early settlers were adopted to represent the country. English is the offical language of the United States and Christianity has long been accepted as one of the major religions.

The issue at hand is that while America is a great country to live in, many of the races that move to the country do not want to forget their traditional heritage that makes them unique. This creates seperation into smaller pockets or mini countries inside the United States.

In The Education System

Cultural diversity can be very difficult for students in public schools. Often times students are faced with having to learn multiple languages to fit in at school and then keep the culture of their parents at home. These children often fall through the cracks of the education system and are given below average markings for performance. This can lead to a stereotype of a groups learning ability As a result, there are far fewer minority children as a whole in gifted programs than the majority. Children of the various ethnicities are extremely underrepresented in the public school system.

The primary cause for underrepresentation of minorities in gifted education programs is the methods of which children are indentified. Student that are asked to take an IQ test in their secondary language of English are far less likely to display higher scores than that of a student that can comprehend the content on the assessment. Teacher nominations are also usually inaccurate due to sterotypes. Teachers who have experienced poor performances from a racial group will be less likely to suggest a student from the same background. While these methods of identification are main culprits for the lack of cuturally diverse children in gifted programs there are a few methods of identification that work.

Creativity test have been stated to take the cultural bias out of identification of gifted and talented students. Test such as the Torrence Test of Creative Thinking and the Group Inventory For Finding Talent (GIFT) have been know to test creativity and not language comprehension.

How to does the education system tackle the challenge of meeting the needs of culturally diverse chilren?

The most important step to obtaining a successful gifted program for culturally diverse children according to Donna Ford PH.D is to make the program more accepting of the differences in student ethnicities. Methods of identification should not be ethnically baised but on pure intellect. She states that until that happens there are other smaller scale alternatives that can be successful. 1. Parents should be more involved with their childrens education. Also, continue to engage your child in achievement based activities. She even says that living in a diverse community will he break the pockets of seperation. Many schools where there is a diverse population have already been dealing with the issue of reaching the needs of all learners. 2. Teachers should not be quick to judge a students abilities based upon race. Create lessons that encompass various cultures beliefs and ideas.

Works Cited

Davis, G. A., & Rimm, S. B. (1998). //Education of the gifted and talented//. (4th ed.). Needham Heights, MA: Allyn and Bacon.

Ford, D. (n.d.). //A challenge for culturally diverse families of gifted children//. Retrieved from []