Teachers' Recognition of Children with Special Abilities: A Change in Direction!
Catherine Rawlinson 1999
Senior Lecturer
Auckland College of Education, New Zealand
Paper presented to NZARE/AARE, Melbourne, November, December, 1999
Introduction
In the field of gifted education there is growing concern that specific ethnic and socio-economic groups are overlooked when children are nominated for participation in enrichment programmes:
the significant and constant increases in both the number and proportion of racial / ethnic minority and economically disadvantaged children in the... school population are not reflected in programmes for the gifted and talented. (Frasier and Passow, 1994 in Davis and Rimm, 1998, p. 248).
Literature shows that rigid identification criteria with limited time constraints, inaccurate perceptions of the concept of giftedness, negative stereotyping and lack of sensitivity to cultural variations in the demonstration of special abilities, have greatly contributed to the disparity in this area of enrichment opportunities (Vialle, 1999; Maker, 1996; Ogbu, 1992).
Much is written about American and British concerns relating to under representation in gifted programmes of children from culturally diverse and low socio-economic backgrounds. However this concern is relevant in the New Zealand context as well. According to Moltzen 1996:
under representation of culturally different children in programmes for the gifted is an internationally recognised phenomenon and New Zealand is no exception (p. 417).
In New Zealand there are now more than 78,000 children from non-English speaking backgrounds in our schools (New Zealand Education Gazette, 1999). Although most teachers are strongly committed to supporting the development of children's strengths and special abilities the challenge of catering for the growing diversity of ethnic groups cannot be underestimated.
While recent trends in academic achievement show that young people in New Zealand are attaining higher qualifications, New Zealand literature acknowledges that Maori and Pacific Island students are in the high risk category in terms of underachievement (Krishnan, Schoeffel and Warren 1994). These two groups are less likely than other ethnic groups to leave school with qualifications for entrance into tertiary education. In fact Statistics New Zealand 1998 states that:
the lower the qualification, the greater the proportion of Maori and Pacific Island people (p. 43).
Another disturbing trend in this area of academic performance is that literature suggests Māori and Pacific Island children are under represented in gifted and talented programmes in New Zealand schools. (Moltzen, 1996; Reid, 1992). This under representation is of major concern because as most experienced New Zealand teachers are aware, many Māori and Pacific Island children possess high levels of ability in a range of domains. In New Zealand publications there is a range of literature outlining educational opportunities for children with special abilities, however there seems to be a dearth of current literature describing special ability programmes which have been developed specifically to include and support Māori and Pacific Island students.
This paper focuses on teachers' recognition of children with special abilities and it examines whether a change in the direction of identification strategies has any effect on teachers' recognition of special abilities for Pacific Island children and those in lower socio-economic groups.
The processes of identification for children with special abilities have changed markedly in New Zealand over the last 20 years, with the values of a multi faceted approach now being more widely recognised. A new teacher observation scale for identifying children with special abilities has been developed in New Zealand (McAlpine and Reid, 1996) however a multicultural scale was not included as part of this package. While the authors highlight the challenges they encountered in their efforts to develop a scale for ethnic minority groups they urge New Zealand teachers to:
consider the backgrounds of minority children ... and exercise cultural sensitivity in their observations (p. 3).
Unfortunately this is not as easy as it seems because as Davis and Rimm (1998) explain, children from different ethnic groups and lower socio-economic groups can actually be disadvantaged by teacher selection since teachers may have lower expectations for these children. As Clark (1988) states:
there remains a persistent attitude that gifted children are not found in certain populations (p. 262).
Renzulli (1986) addresses this area of the under representation of ethnic and socio-economic groups in gifted programmes. He warns against identification strategies, for children in minority ethnic groups, which result in total pre-selection of children. Instead Renzulli and Reis (1991) recommend that a change in direction is needed in identification so that more children are given more opportunities to demonstrate their potential. In fact they suggest flexibility in identification and programming so that children at risk of underachieving can have the opportunity to demonstrate their potential. This inclusive approach is reinforced by Tannenbaum (1983) who states that when working with children we need to be prepared to deal with:
talent in the making... and create a pool of hopefuls... if we want to increase chances of uncovering hidden talents (p. 342).
In this paper I describe a programme which supports the developmental nature of giftedness currently emphasised in the field of gifted education. Renzulli and Reis's (1991) flexible identification programme was translated into practice so that instead of pre-selecting a group of children to participate in a withdrawal enrichment programme on the basis of one off performance of specific gifted behaviours, an alternative strategy was used. A "pool of hopefuls" was created with all children, from all ethnic, gender, and socio-economic groups.
All children from four Year 4,5, and 6 classes were given the opportunity to participate in a class-based, three-staged enrichment programme. This enrichment programme was based on the Renzulli Enrichment Triad (Renzulli, 1977; Renzulli and Reis, 1985, 1997), a current curriculum model designed to support children with special abilities and to nurture the development of talent. The enrichment programme described in this study was designed by the researcher and based upon a thematic approach with the topic being navigation. Maker (1996) recommends the implementation of culturally relevant thematic units as a most appropriate strategy to support the identification of gifted minority students.
Teachers were asked to work on the navigation enrichment programme with all children in their classes for an 8-week time frame. In addition teachers were asked to complete an adapted version of the Renzulli / Hartman special abilities scale. A current definition of the concept of special abilities was also given to all teachers. This scale was completed both at the beginning and again at the end of the school term within which the enrichment programme was covered.