ABSTRACT

Author Note: Jesse Erwin helped with the research supporting this chapter. It is a truism that African American students are under-represented in gifted1 and

talented education programs. Several explanations have been advanced for under-representation (Ford, 1995, 1998), but the most potent is the broader issue of the achievement gap in the American education system. Given that (a) African American students obtain lower scores, on average, on cognitive tests and tests of achievement across all academic domains than their Asian American and European American counterparts (Aud, Fox, & KewalRamani, 2010; Jencks & Phillips, 1998; Lee, 2002; Neisser et al., 1996); and (b) identification for gifted and talented education programs is often based on scores on these types of tests (Worrell, 2009b), it is inevitable that African Americans will be under-represented in programs for gifted and talented students relative to these other groups (Lohman, 2005a).