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Across the nation, African-American and Latino males have experienced limited access to placement in gifted education programs. This paper aims to pinpoint and describe the factors that frequently influence access to gifted education programming among African-American and Latino males.

African-American and Latino males are persistently underrepresented in gifted education for reasons such as teachers’ narrow conceptions of giftedness, teachers’ bias in the nomination process and teachers’ inappropriate usage and interpretation of intelligence measures. When these students qualify for such services, they often experience feelings of isolation and loneliness due to scarce representation of other African-American and Latino male students. A review of extant literature was conducted to identify factors that influence access to gifted education programming among African-American and Latino males.

African-American and Latino males encounter roadblocks in being identified for gifted placement and many also experience implicit biases and stereotypical beliefs about their ability. The need for culturally competent professionals is critical to meet the academic and social-emotional needs of gifted African-American and Latino males.

Recommendations for school psychologists and school counselors are offered to support the needs of gifted African-American and Latino males, assist in increasing their identification and participation in gifted education, and promote academic success.

There is an urgent need for research on access and placement in gifted programming among African-American and Latino males. Moreover, the role of school psychologists and school counselors should be considered in facilitation of gifted identification and placement.

There are very few Black children in programs for gifted children when both historical and contemporary research indicate that such environments contain elements very similar to those described as advantageous for Black children. Presented here is an overview of the research regarding Black children’s learning styles, multiple intelligences, and cultural expectations around adult-child interactions and a comparison to characteristics of gifted (and potentially gifted) children. In addition, the evolution and refinement of the definition of giftedness is outlined along with the impact of those definitions on Black children. The identification, assessment, and testing processes used to place students in gifted programs are outlined along with policies (e.g., universal screening) and practices (e.g., more multicultural education and gifted education in teacher in-service and pre-service education) that can transform gifted programs into diverse and inclusive learning environments where gifted Black students learn, grow, and thrive. Finally, classroom practices that cultivate the genius and giftedness of Black children are presented – practices that give teachers an opportunity to add to their repertoire of strategies and pedagogy in order to increase their ability to create more inclusive learning environments that benefit all children in general and Black children in particular.

This chapter addresses the current social-political challenges to providing education to the gifted in the Dominican Republic, including issues in the enforcement of educational laws and ordinances, a lack of vision and moral/ethical values in all stakeholder categories, and inefficiencies in the educational system. In this chapter, we address the challenges of designing identification instruments and processes from scratch given that existing literature on gifted education mainly addresses the US context, where valid aptitude and achievement tests and checklists are available to use.

Despite the challenges Latino males face throughout their educational experience, promising practices exist to enhance their academic success (Sáenz & Ponjuan, 2011). This chapter addresses factors that commonly hinder the educational opportunities of Latino males, and it pinpoints those supportive factors that help advance their educational progress. Recommendations are provided to assist in increasing the identification of gifted Latino males and their participation in gifted education. Educational practice and policy recommendations are also offered.

The current status of indigenous gifted children and youth in an ethno-linguistic diverse Andean country is presented. The major purposes of this chapter are: (a) to describe gifted education in Peru, underlining the advocacy efforts toward the indigenous population; (b) to analyze the provisions for talent development in Peru; and (c) to present the challenges for the Peruvian indigenous gifted in the future, taking into consideration the needs and challenges of a multicultural society.

Placing gifted and talented students together organizationally is not a substitute for appropriate services. The placement or program model fundamentally serves as a vehicle to group or organize students together but programming, in practice, sometimes referred to as a service delivery model, is not the same thing as service. Placement is a management strategy. It must be coupled with curriculum and instructional modifications in order for substantial and positive academic and social–emotional effects to occur for gifted and talented students. Specifically, the program placement model is only as good as the curriculum and instructional models provided within that placement. This chapter provides descriptions and research evidence of the macro program models used for serving gifted students and more commonly used program placement models for grouping gifted students together within the traditional school day and beyond. Non-negotiable components and future directions are also discussed within the context of placement.

Providing specialized services to a specific population requires assessment and identification procedures to avoid providing services to those who are ineligible to receive them as well as ensuring that eligible individuals are provided the services intended for them. Education of the gifted is such a specialized service, and so, assessment procedures are necessary for this population. Special educational programs are not an entitlement for individuals who are gifted as they are for individuals with disabilities. Consequently, operational definitions and procedures vary widely across states and even across school divisions within states. Therefore, the present paper summarizes characteristics that are considered to be early markers of giftedness and discusses some of the ways that they can be assessed. Problems in assessment (e.g., ceiling effects on norm-referenced measures, and difficulties in assessing creative aspects of performance) are also discussed. In the absence of consistent definitions and formal measures that are able to tap aspects of the definition with reliability and validity, assessment and identification of individuals who are gifted is likely to remain an impressionistic task in which individuals are compared to poorly defined prototypes of what it means to be gifted.

The historian, Arthur M. Schlesinger (1999), once wrote that “a basic theme of American history has been the movement, uneven but steady, from exclusion to inclusion” – a movement “fueled by ideals” (p. 173). He might well have been talking about the United States’ public education system where it has become evident that segments of its pupil population have been overlooked or neglected. The good news is that there have been some efforts to ameliorate this problem. However, despite these efforts, there continues to be lingering problems for culturally and linguistically diverse students with gifts and talents. In this chapter, we address how to maximize the success potential of these students.

Similar to other parts of the United States, its southern region is still wrestling with the implications of the resegregation of America’s schools. Unlike other parts of the country, however, the Deep South demons are rooted in a vastly different historical context. This chapter offers an historical analysis of the educational problems in the Deep South, with strong emphasis on gifted programming. Further, in this chapter, we present and describe a framework that could guide educators as they strive to identify giftedness among children of color and implement programming in a culturally responsive manner.

Societal interest in individuals with high aptitudes, gifts, talents, and extraordinary abilities dates back thousands of years, perhaps as early as 3000 BC. For example, “as early as Biblical times, prophets and learned men were extolled for their wisdom and leadership. Plato likewise accorded positions of supremacy to certain individuals based on their superior endowment of intelligence. Even in the Dark and Middle Ages, generally considered inhibitory of talent and innovation, some members of society were ennobled for their intellectual and religious acumen” (Kaufmann, Castellanos, & Rotatori, 1986, p. 232). Some societies identified children with promise and potential and provided them with special education (Freeman, 1979). This was the case with the Emperor Charlemagne who in 800 AD requested that the state provide and pay for such education for children from the common masses (Schwenn, 1985).