Inequality in Gifted and Talented Programs

Opportunity Hoarding in School Choice Contexts: The Role of Policy Design in Promoting Middle-Class Parents’ Exclusionary Behaviors

“…Lareau’s (2003) seminal work on class differences in approaches to child rearing provided both a vocabulary and a conceptual framework for understanding how and why, through a combination of existing school structures, normative expectations, and parents’ own practices, middle-class parents were able to use schools as an engine through which to preserve their children’s privilege. Other studies have explored the alignment between White, middle-class habitus and resources and specific policies such as high school choice in New York City (Sattin-Bajaj, 2014), voluntary magnet school programs (Smrekar & Goldring, 1999), G&T programs (Roda, 2015), and charter school admissions requirements (Makris, 2015). A related set of work considers policy changes that might improve opportunity for educational equity, in part by reducing the conditions for social reproduction (Carter & Welner, 2011; Gottfried & Conchas, 2016; Sattin-Bajaj, 2014).…”

“…Maintaining a sizable middle-class population benefits school districts through an increased tax base, greater social capital, and additional fund-raising that can cover educational necessities (Posey-Maddox, 2015). At the same time, there is extensive evidence of inequitable access to high-performing schools and growing within- and between-school segregation in areas most affected by gentrification (Holme, 2002; Owens, 2017; Pearman & Swain, 2017; Roda, 2015).…”

“…Middle-class families in gentrifying urban neighborhoods, who are overwhelmingly White, frequently leverage school choice options to enroll in private schools, charter schools, or specialized programs such as gifted and talented (G&T). These schools also tend to be less racially and socioeconomically diverse than their neighborhood schools (see Kotok, Frankenberg, Schafft, Mann, & Fuller, 2017; Mickelson, Bottia, & Southworth, 2008; Roda, 2015). Consequently, in many urban school districts, choice policies function to benefit the most advantaged families in the system, often to the detriment of less economically advantaged students of color whose access to higher quality educational opportunities can be constrained by increased competition (Cucchiara, 2013a; Posey-Maddox, 2014).…”

“Why are the Gifted Classes So White?” Making Space for Gifted Latino Students

“…When viewed through the lens of CRT, the disproportionate ethnic makeup of the Bryson Valley AIG classes takes on more insidious implications. AIG classes have become a way to continue segregation in an “acceptable” way (Ford, 1995; Roda, 2015). With a high incidence of White class members, AIG identification takes on the “whiteness as property” (Harris, 1993) aspect that leads Mansfield (2015, 2016) to equate giftedness with whiteness.…”

Test-Taking for Gifted and Talented Kindergarten: Underscoring the Importance of Outreach

“…In looking to uncover the mechanism underlying the public pre-K effect on G & T test-taking in New York City, a fruitful point of reference is the school choice literature. That literature suggests that a parental decision to seek out a G & T program in kindergarten is often linked to a search for school options outside of what is available to them in their own school zone (Kletter, 2019;Roda, 2015). Especially within the context of having to navigate a complex multipleapplication process like that in New York City, this literature highlights the importance of having access to information about these other education programs (Corcoran et al, 2018;Hastings & Weinstein, 2008;Valant, 2014;York et al, 2019).…”