Gifted Programming Identification Procedures: A Hidden Curriculum

Monocultural notions of intelligence are crippling the field of gifted education and often, whether explicitly or implicitly, perpetuate inequity and disproportionality in both theory and practice, especially regarding how children are identified as gifted (Cross, 2021; Owens et al., 2018). This paper briefly examines the history of the conceptualization of giftedness and posits that gifted programming identification procedures represent a unique and dangerous hidden curriculum. Drawing from theory on critical hope and positionality, two tables are presented; one to examine hokey versus critical gifted programing practices, and one to examine dehumanizing versus humanizing gifted identification procedures. These tables are intended to generate discussion on what happens when new ways of conceptualizing giftedness meet old ways of understanding, informing, and ordering the field of gifted education.

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