Gifted education in the United States has a long history of underrepresentation of culturally, linguistically, and economically diverse (CLED) gifted students. Despite the many years of attention toward this pervasive problem, the gap in equity and access to gifted services for CLED students has not closed due to a variety of practices related to assessments, teacher referrals, and support structures. The authors contend that many issues stem from a common underlying cause: a lack of cultural knowledge and competency pertaining to gifted youth. This article presents guiding principles based in professional learning, equity, and gifted pedagogy for use in crafting training experiences: pulse-taking, establishing safe zones, individualizing professional learning plans, cultural training beyond surface-level, school/home connections, identifying grows and glows, and engaging in courageous conversations.

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Gifted Black and Brown students are not voiceless; their voices are suffocated under the knee of systemic racism and white supremacy. This chapter proposes that the field of gifted education advocates for needed structural and systemic change through the discourse of critical race theory. A model of gifted criticalrace studies (GTCrit) is presented and described as both a way to understand race and racism in gifted education and to drive social change. GTCrit theorizes about the ways in which race, racism, ability, potentiality, and deficit ideology are built into daily interactions and discourses, informal and formal policies and procedures, and systems and structures of education, which disproportionately impact students of color qualitatively differently than white students.

The Four Zone Professional Learning Model is a practical, comprehensive approach to striving towards equity through professional learning within gifted education programs. Grounded in equity literacy and funds of knowledge frameworks and based in best practices in culturally responsive gifted professional learning, the zones address the knowledge and skills necessary for proficient teachers of the gifted through the process of systemic change. The model was designed and developed over several years utilizing the plan-study-do-act action research model. This article discusses the methodological evolution of the model, the research and theoretical frameworks in which it is grounded, and future implications.

Gifted identification and services, like many aspects of education, are inequitable and disproportionate in favor of White students. Obama Elementary School serves 421 students: 29% are Black and 58% are White; the school’s gifted program is 10% Black and 86% White. Rebecca Johnson, the gifted teacher, brings this to the attention of her principal, who has Rebecca present to the school improvement team. Rebecca receives pushback from a culturally unresponsive and equity-illiterate group. This case study provides teaching notes on gifted identification and services as well as cultural proficiency and equity literacy, and is framed in both gifted education and anti-racism.