Who’s Got Talent for Identifying Talent? Predictors of Equitable Gifted Identification for Black and Hispanic Students

Abstract

Students who are Black or Hispanic have long been disproportionately represented in K–12 gifted and talented services. However, there are schools that have diverged from this trend by identifying atypically high numbers of Black and Hispanic students. In this conceptual replication of Peters and Johnson, we present predictors of whether a school offers gifted services (i.e., access) and representation indices for Black and Hispanic students (i.e., equity) within schools that enroll 10 or more Black or Hispanic students. Our results show that state policy mandates for gifted education are predictive of higher levels of access to and equity within gifted services for these schools. The average achievement and socioeconomic status of the district were positive predictors of access and equity while the district proportion eligible for special education services was a negative predictor of both. Finally, we end with a description of how the top 5% most-equitable schools in the country look different from their peers.