Abstract
Like other children from underserved populations, Bedouin children are severely underrepresented in gifted education. Although socioeconomic and educational disparities in Bedouin society are well recognized, very little is currently known about the role of families and schools in the identification and participation of Bedouin children in gifted education. Guided by a culturally responsive perspective on giftedness, we examined how Bedouin parents and school principals perceive giftedness and how such perceptions shape decision-making processes regarding children’s referral to and participation in gifted education. The study included semi-structured interviews with 11 parents (6 mothers and 5 fathers) and 5 primary school principals (3 men and 2 women). Thematic analysis was used to identify patterns of meaning across the dataset. Our results suggest that economic barriers to Bedouin children’s participation in gifted education intersect with sociocultural perceptions, such as constructing giftedness as an innate trait and as a form of Whiteness. We conclude with recommendations for interventions to reduce social disparities in gifted education.
Plain Language Summary
Children in the Bedouin community, like other underserved groups, often have very limited access to gifted education programs. This study interviewed Bedouin parents and school principals to understand the reasons behind this limited access. The researchers used a qualitative method, meaning they focused on people’s experiences and opinions. The study found that even though Bedouin parents and school principals are starting to see the value of gifted programs, many barriers still make it hard for Bedouin students to join them. These barriers include low awareness about gifted programs, financial difficulties, and limited educational recourses. For example, some families cannot afford preparation courses, and schools may lack trained teachers. Other challenges include fear of failure and social judgment, as well as transportation problems that make it hard for students to reach gifted centers. Parents and principals often believe that giftedness is something you are born with, rare, and does not change. Because of this belief, many parents do not think their own children are gifted, even if they might be. Most parents and principals think gifted programs can help children succeed in school and in life. However, some parents worry that labeling a child as “gifted” could create pressure or make the child feel isolated. Overall, the study shows that Bedouin students are underrepresented in gifted programs because of a mix of economic, social, cultural, and family-related factors. These challenges can prevent children from even being considered for gifted programs in the first place.
Introduction
Gifted education programs have an important, positive effect on students’ academic and socio-emotional development (Kim, 2016). These advantages are even more prominent for students from underserved populations because gifted education may compensate for educational settings with lower expectations or poor academic levels (Card & Giuliano, 2014, 2016). Participation in gifted programs was found to have positive effects on the self-confidence of students from underserved populations and on their communication and cognitive skills (Bracken et al., 2006; VanTassel-Baska et al., 2009). In addition, equities in gifted education may improve enrollment in advanced programs, leading to broadened participation in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) fields and to increased social and economic mobility (Crabtree et al., 2019). However, children from underserved populations such as children from low socioeconomic backgrounds (Long et al., 2023), cultural and linguistic minority groups (Ford, 2010, 2018; Young & Young, 2022), and/or children living in rural communities (Hodges & Gentry, 2021; Kuehl et al., 2025) are less likely to be recognized as gifted or to participate in gifted education programs.
Notable scholars have challenged the prevailing normative culture of Whiteness in gifted education (Carter Andrews et al., 2021; Stark, 2014), emphasizing the importance of culturally responsive pedagogy to better support gifted students from diverse backgrounds (Ottwein & Mun, 2023; Roberson, 2021). A culturally responsive approach to gifted education bridges students’ cultural assets and connects them to academic skills and concepts, making learning for all students relevant to their everyday lived experiences (Garces-Bacsal & Elhoweris, 2022; Hines et al., 2025; Yao et al., 2023). Guided by this view, we focused our investigation on a marginalized, ethnic minority group of Bedouin Arabs living in the Negev, a large desert and semidesert region in southern Israel. In the current study, we examined how Bedouin parents and school principals construct giftedness and how these constructions shape their attitudes, perceptions, and practices toward children’s identification and participation in gifted programs. Here we provide a short description of the Bedouin society of the Negev.
Educational Gaps in the Bedouin Society of the Negev
The Bedouin population of the Negev, a distinct subgroup within the Muslim Arab minority in Israel, includes around 300,000 people (more than half are younger than 18 years of age), comprising about 25% of the Negev population and 3% of the country’s total population (The Israeli Knesset, 2023). The Bedouin of the Negev are historically affiliated with nomadic tribes, who engaged primarily in caprine and camel herding and migrated into the Negev mostly between the 18th century CE and 1948 (Ashkenazi et al., 2023). Since the establishment of the Israeli state in 1948, the majority of Bedouin in southern Israel have been moved to live in towns that were established for them by the state, in the process of urbanization (Yahel, 2021). Today, the Bedouins of the Negev reside in three dominant residential forms: urban townships, recognized villages, and unrecognized villages (the last form includes 29% of the Negev population). Being unrecognized by the government, members of unrecognized villages are not connected to the national infrastructure and lack access to water, electricity, and telecommunications (The Israeli Knesset, 2023).
The Bedouin community faces systematic exclusion, discrimination, and neglect in all aspects of life, with severe gaps in health (Dopelt et al., 2024), employment (Allassad Alhuzail & Segev, 2023), and technology (Abu-Kaf et al., 2019). The Bedouin education system struggles with significant resource constraints, including difficulties recruiting qualified teachers, poor physical infrastructure, overcrowded classes, and a shortage of mental health professionals (Abu-Sa’ad, 2023). Whereas there has been a significant increase in educational achievements among non-Bedouin Arab youth, Bedouin children still demonstrate low achievement in standardized tests and matriculation exams, as well as high dropout rates (Abu-Sa’ad, 2023). These high dropout rates and low achievement levels in high school pose a significant barrier to acceptance into higher education institutions. The percentage of Bedouins in bachelor’s degree programs is 1.7% of all students (compared to 4% in the relevant age group). Most students study humanities, education, and teaching, with 5% studying engineering (Brookdale Institute, 2021).
Very little is currently known about gifted education in Israel’s Arab society, and particularly in the Bedouin community. In Israel’s Arab society, there are 18 gifted centers, mainly located in urban centers. The first center for gifted and talented Bedouin students was opened in 1993 in Rahat, the largest Bedouin city in the Negev (Rabinovitch, 2017). Nevertheless, Bedouin children are still severely underrepresented in gifted programs. In 2022, the number of Bedouin children identified as gifted in the largest Bedouin cities in the Negev was fewer than five. In Rahat, for example, there were fewer than 5 children identified as gifted, compared to 43 children in a Jewish city with a similar number of inhabitants (Movement for Transparency of Information, 2023). These stark social disparities in gifted education, together with the potential benefits of gifted programs for children from underserved groups, emphasize the importance of identifying the sociocultural and economic barriers to gifted education in the Bedouin society and how they inform parents’ and educators’ perceptions and practices.
A Culturally Responsive Approach to Giftedness
For many years, gifted education research was dominated by deficit-thinking paradigms, which attribute student failure to personal (such as cognitive and/or motivational limitations) or family deficits and dysfunctions (Ford & Grantham, 2003). Recently, however, a growing body of research frames giftedness within culturally responsive or culturally relevant perspectives, aiming to promote a compassionate rather than a deficit-oriented understanding (Gray, 2025; Mun et al., 2020; Reynen-Woodward et al., 2024). A culturally responsive approach to giftedness provides a compelling framework to study giftedness in the Bedouin society, first, because giftedness is culturally defined (Gibson & Vialle, 2020). The literature acknowledges that giftedness may be either recognized, celebrated, or overlooked in various cultural or educational contexts, with different values holding significance in different cultures (Elton, 2023; Klimecká, 2024; O’Connor, 2012). Therefore, a culturally responsive approach to giftedness requires an awareness of intersectionality and an appreciation for the factors that are most relevant in each cultural context (Ibata-Arens, 2012; Peters et al., 2019). For instance, minority students may experience stereotype threat, or fear that their academic performance may confirm negative beliefs others may hold about their group (Lee et al., 2010). This fear is also related to the issue of “fewness,” namely, being one of the few gifted minority students within a school or accelerated courses (Miller, 2004). Another example of how cultural values may influence the construction of giftedness may be seen in Carter’s (2021) study, who focused on the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australian cultures. This study revealed that people in this community believed that a person should not strive for personal achievement but rather act for the benefit of the whole community. Being identified as gifted was, therefore, perceived as embarrassing, drawing unnecessary attention, or not being humbled. Leaving the community to attend special programs was legitimized only if the gifted individuals returned to the community and invested the educational or social capital they had earned back into the community.
The second reason to adopt a culturally responsive approach to giftedness is that the construction of giftedness is often culturally and racially biased (Howard, 2018; Stark, 2014). Scholars working within critical Whiteness studies and the closely related field of critical race theory have developed a robust theoretical framework for examining the ways in which education policies reproduce racial hierarchies, simultaneously obscuring and reinforcing White privilege (Lamb & Hertzog, 2025; Stark, 2014). Studies demonstrate how giftedness discourse has normalized unequal schooling and sustained White privilege through various practices (Staiger, 2018), such as the segregation of White children in advanced programs (Tyson, 2011) and labeling students of color as having an intellectual disability (Hatt, 2016). These studies also highlight the role of the school’s gatekeeping process through the referral and recommendation process (Novak & Jones, 2020). For instance, a study among third- and fourth-grade teachers in schools with a heterogeneous racial/ethnic student body (Fish, 2017) suggests that teachers’ categorizations of students as “normal” or exceptional were dependent on the race/ethnicity of the student. When the vignettes that were given to the teachers suggested academic giftedness (i.e., the fictional student demonstrated academic strengths and emotional sensitivity), the teachers were more likely to perceive them as White. These findings suggest that teachers perceive high educational ability as a natural characteristic of White students and associate low academic performance with being Black or Hispanic. Such educational practices reinforce inequities by implying that academic talent is primarily found among students from privileged backgrounds (Grantham, 2012). Moreover, the gifted identification process largely relies on intelligence quotient tests, which suffer from systematic biases against ethnic minorities and other marginalized groups (Pfeiffer, 2012). In most countries, students identified as gifted are those who scored at the highest percentiles (e.g., 1%–5%) in either standardized achievement or intelligence tests (García-Perales et al., 2024; Long et al., 2023). These criteria reflect the Western assumption that giftedness is synonymous with intelligence and achievement and that both can be measured validly and reliably with standardized tests, regardless of culture and other demographic variables (Ford, 2018). However, these tools may be culturally, linguistically, and racially biased and do not reflect the interests and values of diverse populations (Ford & King, 2014; Reynolds & Carson, 2005).
Finally, applying a culturally responsive pedagogy to gifted identification may serve as a potential pathway to remove barriers and improve the access of students from different backgrounds to gifted education. Previous studies showed that the use of qualitative measures of giftedness and excellence, such as expertise in a particular domain, creative or productive thinking, leadership, or performance in visual and performing arts, led to an increase in the identification of students from underserved backgrounds (Callahan et al., 2022; Graefe & Ritchotte, 2019). There is also evidence to suggest that using nonverbal tests that can assess cognitive ability independent of linguistic and cultural background or addressing language and academic knowledge demands in test content and instruction may increase the representation of economically disadvantaged and minority students in gifted programs (Card & Giuliano, 2016; Selvamenan et al., 2024).
In this paper, we locate our investigation within a culturally responsive framework and analyze how ethnic minority Bedouin parents and school principals construct giftedness and how this construction might translate into attitudes and decision-making processes regarding children’s gifted education. Before presenting the objectives of the current study, we will shortly describe how giftedness is considered in the Arab world.
Giftedness in the Arab World
The concept of giftedness appears in the Qur’an, and when a child is born, it is customary to say, “You are blessed with the gifted.” Arab-Muslim society perceives giftedness as “a gift from God.” Gifted individuals are regarded as a social asset and, therefore, investing in their future is necessary (Hamadna, 2014). It is clearly stated in the Qur’an and Hadith that Muslims have a duty to pursue al-‘Uloom al-‘Aqliyyah (intellectual sciences). This renders the pursuit of ‘ilm (knowledge) a sacred obligation for Muslims (Halstead, 2004). Despite these traditional perceptions of education, education systems in the Arab world recognized the importance of giftedness and gifted education relatively late (Ismail et al., 2022). Egypt was the first country to establish gifted centers in the 1950s, followed by other countries such as Jordan, Syria, Iraq, Tunisia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Saudi Arabia (Hamadna, 2014). Recent studies in Arab countries such as Jordan (Hamadna, 2014), Egypt (Ayoub et al., 2022), and Lebanon (Al-Hroub, 2022) have indicated a growing awareness of the importance of nurturing the gifted and the allocation of unique resources such as excellence programs, competitions, and the establishment of gifted classrooms.
However, Arabic and Islamic countries encounter systematic barriers to identification and participation in gifted and talented programs (Subhi-Yamin, 2009). These include sociocultural factors (e.g., negative perceptions of giftedness, insufficient recognition of the importance of gifted education, lack of culturally relevant understanding of excellence), structural barriers (e.g., poverty, geographic isolation, inadequate facilities), educational barriers (e.g., lack of encouragement from the educational staff, persistent shortage of qualified teachers), and familial barriers (e.g., a lack of parental involvement in their children’s education). For instance, a study examining the attitudes of Lebanese teachers showed that they refrained from referring gifted students to unique gifted programs, as they believed that the presence of gifted individuals in regular classes would positively influence the other students (Antoun et al., 2022). Alodat and Gentry (2022) and Alodat and Momani (2018) studied gifted education among Syrian refugees in Jordan. Based on a qualitative phenomenological study of school principals and educational supervisors in schools with Syrian students (inside refugee camps), the study pointed to multiple obstacles to the identification of gifted Syrian children. These obstacles included teachers’ lack of knowledge about giftedness, a lack of professional training, and a lack of interest and cooperation from parents and the community. School principals stated that schools also lacked formal procedures and valid instruments to identify gifted students among this refugee student population, and that they also lacked legislative (e.g., laws that addressed students’ admission, cognitive ability levels, and gifted identification services) and financial resources, which may have impacted the effectiveness of the identification procedures.
Gifted Education in Israel
Gifted education in Israel is handled by the Department for Disability and Special Educational Needs at Israel’s Ministry of Education (MoE). Participation in gifted identification tests is offered to all children in second grade in Jewish schools and to all children in third grade in Arab schools, regardless of their academic achievements or their teachers’ evaluations. The gifted identification process includes two stages. The purpose of the first stage is to help the school staff select the students with the highest abilities in the class (about 15% of the students in the class and grade). This test primarily examines students’ reading comprehension and mathematical abilities and is administered by the school’s teaching staff according to the MoE’s guidelines. Then, schools inform students’ parents about the decision to include or exclude their child from the second stage. The second stage aims to identify gifted children. This test is administered by an external body at regional test centers outside the school. The second stage is more complicated than the first one and requires intellectual engagement under time pressure. The test evaluates general cognitive abilities, using verbal connections, mathematical thinking, and logical, inferential abilities. At the end of the exam, and according to the national acceptance threshold, students who reach the national percentile of approximately 97 and above from the entire student population of that grade year will be recommended for the specialized programs for gifted students. These students are offered pull-out programs in which students learn 1 day per week in gifted education centers. Students whose achievements are within the national percentile range of up to 5% below the threshold set for gifted students in that grade year are invited to participate in talented programs, which include afternoon enrichment courses (MoE, 2020). Despite this universal screening policy, Israeli gifted education is characterized by systematic gender, ethnicity, and class inequities, with Jewish middle-class boys more likely than others to participate in gifted screening and programs (Bar-On & Connor-Atias, 2023). These differences in gifted education probably reflect the reality that Arabic-language state high schools are more poorly funded and serve student populations with higher rates of family poverty and lower levels of parental education than the coeducational Hebrew-language state high schools attended by most Jewish students (Abu-Asaad et al., 2025). However, similar to social inequities in STEM education (Blank et al., 2022; Charles, 2017), evidence suggests that while Jewish Israeli boys are more likely to be identified as gifted than Jewish girls, Arab Israeli girls are more likely to be identified as gifted than Arab boys (Ministry of Education, personal communication, February 2020). This intersection of gender and ethnicity in STEM was largely attributed to academic tracking and school staff selection, with girls in Arab society typically achieving higher academic results and thus being referred to STEM subjects by the school staff (Pinson et al., 2020). The observed inequities in Israeli gifted education call for further investigation of the family and school mechanisms that contribute to and maintain the underrepresentation of diverse children in gifted programs, and the identification of strategies to remove sociocultural and economic barriers.
The Current Study
Unlike many European (e.g., Austria, Switzerland, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Sweden, Slovenia, Latvia, Hungary, and the United Kingdom; Reid & Boettger, 2015; Sękowski & Łubianka, 2013) or Asian countries (e.g., Taiwan, Singapore, Korea; Heuser et al., 2017), where participation in gifted education depends primarily or partially on teachers’ nominations, in Israel participation in nationwide gifted education assessment is offered to all children and depends upon parental consent. However, because schools are responsible for informing parents about the process and its outcomes and for administering the test, schools’ agendas, motivations, and interests may also play an important role in identifying gifted children. The current study aimed to investigate the role of educational, sociocultural, and structural factors in shaping how Bedouin parents and primary school principals in the Negev perceive giftedness, as well as how these perceptions influence their decisions regarding the referral and participation of students in gifted programs. Most studies on giftedness in Israel, and worldwide, have focused on students already identified as gifted (Makel, 2009). As such, there is a lack of information on how social and cultural factors influence the identification process. In the current research, we therefore sought to focus on a broader range of parents of students, not only those identified as gifted. This study, which, to the best of our knowledge, is the first to focus on giftedness in Bedouin society in the Negev, may result in the identification of cultural barriers to gifted education and assist in creating culturally relevant interventions for families and educators.
Method
Participants
Participants were 11 parents of third-grade students (5 fathers and 6 mothers). All parents resided in a single Bedouin city in the Negev. We chose to focus on parents of third graders because during this school year, gifted identification tests are administered in the Arab educational sector. To provide a richer perspective on gifted education in the Bedouin society, we also included five primary school principals from the same Bedouin city (three male and two female). One of the principals served as the head of an educational center for talented and gifted. To be included in the study, school principals had to (a) be engaged to some extent with gifted education identification and programs (i.e., their schools administered the first stage of the identification test and communicated with parents about the subject) and (b) had at least 2 years of experience as a school principal.
Members of the Bedouin society are considered a hard-to-reach population due to multiple sociocultural factors, including a lack of trust in state institutions, technological barriers, geographic isolation, and fear of stigmatization (Caspi et al., 2015). Therefore, snowball and convenience sampling approaches were used to recruit participants (Sadler et al., 2010). Although we did not use randomization or purposeful sampling, efforts were made to include parents with different educational levels, both mothers and fathers, and male and female school principals. The researchers contacted potential participants by text message, described the study, and invited them to participate. If agreed, an interview was scheduled. If the interview time or the study procedure needed further discussion, a phone call was made. Ten of the individuals who were contacted declined to be interviewed. Tables 1 and 2 describe the demographic characteristics of the parents and school principals, respectively.
Parents’ Background Variables.
School Principals’ Background Variables.
Data Collection
Data collection was carried out through semi-structured interviews, allowing the researcher to gain a detailed understanding of the participants’ experiences, meanings assigned to them, and subjective interpretations. The interview protocol was flexible and tailored to each interviewee, but several questions that were related to key themes identified in previous studies were prepared in advance. In addition to demographic details, the parents’ interviews included questions about the definition of giftedness, characteristics of gifted children, differences between boys and girls in giftedness, whether their child took the screening tests and why, and what is needed to increase Bedouin children’s access to gifted education. School principals were also asked to address the definition and characteristics of giftedness and were requested to focus on their school’s role in gifted education. The interviews were conducted either online or face-to-face at the interviewee’s home, according to their preference, and lasted about 30 to 40 minutes. The interviews were conducted by the first author, a researcher from the Bedouin community, and were translated and transcribed from Arabic to Hebrew. All participants signed a consent form describing the study’s objectives and stating that they could withdraw at any time. Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the institutional review board (IRB) of the authors’ University and the Israeli Ministry of Education. Data were collected during January and June 2024.
Data Analysis
The interviews were analyzed using thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2021, 2023). A thematic analysis searches for patterns within data by organizing and describing the data set and by interpreting various aspects of the research topic. The analysis consisted of six steps. First, the two authors have independently read the interviews while searching for meanings and patterns. Second, initial codes were generated iteratively by transferring meaningful issues reported by the participants to a more conceptual level. We used both an inductive and deductive analytic approach, generating a series of codes from reading the interview data and from the scholarly literature (theoretical). Our deductive analysis was based on concepts in the literature, including the construction of giftedness, inequities in gifted education, and culturally responsive education. Special attention was paid to interviewers’ interpretation of giftedness, barriers to gifted identification, and the decision-making process. Third, themes were developed from the initial codes by grouping related data together. These themes were then either retained or rejected through discussions. Fourth, the two authors collaboratively developed a hierarchical map that outlined the emerging concepts and themes. Fifth, the mapped themes were further refined and clearly defined. Finally, the themes and their overarching narrative were described in detail and supported with illustrative quotations. To account for variation among parents and school principals (e.g., a single participant might express multiple perceptions of giftedness), we coded each text within the interview data when they appeared as individual quotations and at the parent/principal level as an overall characteristic. Table 3 shows the themes, subthemes, codes, and representative quotes.
Clustering of Formulated Meanings Into Themes.
Trustworthiness
The rigor and trustworthiness of the data analysis were established through continuous data collection and the iterative nature of data analysis. For validation, both authors read the transcripts and analyzed them independently. Discrepancies in interpretations were resolved through discussion. In addition, the study design and the interview protocol were reviewed by a specialized committee composed of field and academic experts. A central challenge to this study was how to maintain cultural integrity and refrain from judgment and bias while analyzing and interpreting the interviews. Cultural integrity in qualitative research requires in-depth knowledge and understanding of the sociocultural and political dynamics of a particular research setting (Papadopoulos & Lees, 2003). To address this challenge, we followed the five evaluation criteria for rigor in cross-cultural research informed by Im et al. (2004) and elaborated by Pelzang and Hutchinson (2018). These criteria include (a) Cultural relevance: namely, placing the Bedouin culture and context at the center of our inquiry so that the research and interview questions are carefully framed according to the relevant values; (b) Contextuality: knowledge and understanding of the relevant parent and educator population; (c) Appropriateness: using language congruent with that of the participants and making careful translations. (d) Mutual Respect and Reciprocation: during the interviews, we shared descriptive quantitative results (based on MoE data) with participants, offering them an opportunity to have their own questions answered as well as gain insight into their own circumstances (Elder et al., 2003). We also shared our findings with the community by disseminating Arabic written material about giftedness and by presenting our findings to Bedouin educators. Such reciprocation can also lead to empowerment of research participants that enables them to feel the importance of their contributions to the study and ultimately, to the enhanced understanding of the phenomena being studied. (e) Flexibility in the place and time of data collection.
Researcher Positionality
Thematic analysis relies on an active and reflective research stance (Braun & Clarke, 2021, 2023). Such a stance implies that educational research cannot be value-free (Greenbank, 2003). The first author, who also conducted the interviews, is a Bedouin woman who was a post-doctoral student and an elementary school teacher in a large Bedouin city in the Negev. She also worked part-time as a teacher of gifted and talented students in the Bedouin community. Her position in the field was multifaceted as her cultural, professional, and academic background positioned her in a unique insider-outsider position (Ozano & Khatri, 2018; Yip, 2024); as a Bedouin woman and an educator living in the Negev, she was familiar with the culture and language of the participants and was able to gain access to parents and school principals. Katyal and King (2014) highlight that occupying an insider position can be beneficial, as familiarity tends to make participants feel more at ease and open in their communication. Importantly, as an insider, she could deeply understand the sociocultural barriers to education experienced by the participants. However, as an academic affiliated with a reputable university, she might be perceived as a privileged outsider or potentially distant from participants with diverse socioeconomic and educational backgrounds (Ozano & Khatri, 2018). These differences may also contribute to power relations between the researchers and participants (Dhillon & Thomas, 2019), and influence what participants choose to share in the interviews and the way they present their achievements and challenges (Goundar, 2025).
The second author is a female Jewish associate professor, specializing in culturally responsive education and mental health. Her own experience and roles within the higher education system inform her research and analysis. As a scholar, a lecturer, and a mentor in a public university with the highest rate of Bedouin students and faculty members, she was aware of ethnic inequities in prestigious programs and the multiple challenges Bedouin students face. Her experience with Bedouin students contributed to her interest in the study and to the development of research design and analysis. During collaboration, the two authors were aware of the status disparities between them. The second author, as a Jewish professor, acknowledges that her voices, beliefs, ideologies, and views might be privileged over the voice of the Bedouin postdoc student (Milner, 2007). We thus openly discussed the risks involved in our unequal status and maintained a reflexive dialogue about potential biases.
Findings
Four central themes emerged from the findings, capturing parents’ and principals’ perceptions of giftedness and gifted education. The first theme focused on the etiology of giftedness or, in other words, the origins or causes of giftedness. The second theme focused on how parents and school principals perceived the value of gifted programs for children’s futures. The third theme focused on structural barriers to gifted education, including lack of transportation and lack of financial resources for a preparation course. Finally, the fourth theme addressed the school’s role in promoting gifted education from the perspective of the principals.
The Etiology of Giftedness
Participants held differing perceptions regarding the sources of giftedness. Several parents (n = 3) and school principals (n = 3) viewed giftedness as an innate and stable trait, similar to other genetic traits, such as eye color or height. These participants emphasized the binary quality of giftedness (“a child either has it or doesn’t”) and sometimes equated giftedness with being a genius. The words of Jihan, a mother of three, illustrate this construction of giftedness: Giftedness is an innate trait; a child is born gifted. A gifted child is one who can handle long hours of study, thinks unconventionally, can learn independently, and discovers new things. A child who gains a deep comprehension of things quickly in a way that a regular student can’t.
Similarly, Samer, a father of nine, referred to giftedness as an innate and rare trait, and distinguished this trait from mere academic excellence: Being accepted into the gifted program is not only dependent upon the test or the teacher; it’s the child themselves. A child is born with gifted traits. There are children who get 100 on the test, but if given an external task, they won’t succeed; they lack the ability to think outside the box; their understanding is limited.
Nadaa, a mother of four, perceived giftedness as a rare trait, possessed by very few children. She also perceived gifted education as suitable for highly exceptional children: Gifted programs are beneficial only if the student is motivated and enjoys them; they’re not suitable for everyone. To participate in a gifted program, children must have specific characteristics such as intelligence, the ability to learn independently, and the ability to be flexible in their thinking.
Conversely, several parents (n = 8) and principals (n = 3) emphasized the acquired aspect of giftedness and viewed it as a product of intensive and costly parental and educational investment. For example, Samira, a primary school principal, argued that any child could become gifted if given the necessary support: In my opinion, any child can be a unique and gifted child if his or her needs are met and they work hard and consistently. I believe every child can. I know many parents who nurture their children’s talents and register them in gifted education courses.
Although the above two constructions of giftedness (as an innate trait versus a learned skill) may be seen as mutually exclusive, there were two parents and one principal who perceived giftedness as a combination of nature and nurture. For example, Ahmed, a school principal, perceived giftedness as an innate trait but also emphasized the role of the environment in nurturing or suppressing children’s intellectual potential: “Giftedness is an innate trait and talent, but the environment can strengthen this trait or suppress it.” Likewise, Haled, a father of three, said, “Many students want to be gifted, and it requires a lot of personal, family, and school investment. In my opinion, giftedness is innate; a child is born gifted.”
Interestingly, the interview data suggested that the construction of giftedness was associated with gender differences. As girls in Bedouin society were seen as having higher motivation and learning abilities, they were also perceived as more likely to be gifted. The words of the mothers Huda and Nur illustrate this point, respectively, “Girls are stronger. They can learn for longer hours than boys, they are smarter, and they are willing to put more effort into studying than boys.” “I think girls are more gifted than boys; girls enjoy studying and spend many hours studying. This is especially true in the Bedouin sector; girls like learning more than boys do.”
In contrast, when giftedness was perceived as related to natural abilities in math and science, boys were seen as more gifted, as described by Hassan, a father of five. “Boys are more gifted than girls. I think boys have stronger cognitive abilities than girls, and in science and mathematics, they receive higher grades than girls.”
The Value of Gifted Programs for the Child’s Future
Parents differed in their perceptions of the benefits of gifted programs for children’s futures. Whereas some parents (n = 7) and all principals saw the gifted programs as an important opportunity to improve children’s skills and achievements, several parents (n = 5) viewed them as unnecessary or even undesired programs, associated with pressure and negative stigma. Suha, a mother of eight, explained how her children’s participation in gifted programs could enhance their educational future: I decided to let my children take the screening test because I knew they had the abilities required to excel in it. I just felt they could do it, even though I myself didn’t continue my studies in higher education. I want my children to continue studying, and I’m willing to support them in any way possible, enrolling them in gifted courses and investing in them from a young age.
Similarly, Rami, a father of four, emphasized the central role parents play in their children’s being identified by and participating in gifted programs. “I appeal to all parents; If you notice that your children have special talents, encourage them and invest in them. Don’t let your children’s abilities and the talents go unnoticed. Help your children advance and develop a better future.”
Compared to Suha and Rami, who perceived gifted programs as a means of social mobility, Nur emphasized the importance of gifted education for children’s personal development and self-confidence: I wanted to provide my children with a special opportunity to try something new, to believe in themselves, and to give their maximum. I wanted to help them find their strengths. I always push them to excel and be special and believe in their uniqueness.
In contrast to the parents quoted here, other parents did not see a significant advantage in giftedness or gifted education. These parents viewed the absence of giftedness as evidence of their children’s healthy development, whereas giftedness was perceived by them as anomalous. As seen in Nadaa’s words, giftedness was seen as a harmless/innocuous addition to a child’s abilities, but not something that required special attention or provided a significant advantage for success. “I have no need for my child to be defined as gifted and to pass the [screening] test. I’m happy with his good grades in school. I’m not asking for more than that, thank God. Giftedness is a bonus.”
Other parents noted that the gifted tests imposed additional and unnecessary pressure on their children, both due to the intensive preparation they required and because they could expose children to the experience of failure. Jihan and Nur, respectively, explained why they did not allow their children to participate in the screening test, “The gifted test and the gifted program are very challenging. I don’t like to put an extra burden on my children. It’s enough for me that they receive good scores at school.” “My son would be very anxious if he failed the test, so I preferred that he not participate. This test is not easy. I just want him to get high grades in school.”
Structural Barriers to Gifted Education
Parents as well as school principals identified the lack of infrastructure and financial resources as the main barrier to the identification and participation of children from the Negev Bedouin community in gifted education. These barriers include lack of money for preparation course and lack of transportation to gifted programs.
Hadeel and Huda, respectively, viewed the preparation for the screening tests as a too-lengthy and expensive process. Both mothers gave up on their children’s participation in the screening test due to accessibility difficulties. Hadeel stated, “The test isn’t easy; it requires a lot of investment, studying, and self-motivation. Parents need to invest money in preparing their children for the test. Some parents don’t have money.” Huda said: Due to our living conditions, I explained to my daughter that she doesn’t have to participate in this test; it will not affect her achievements, and it’s just a supplemental thing. I told her I was proud of her, that she’s a good girl and receives good grades, and that maybe one day our conditions will be better and she’ll be able to participate.
Amir explained that he would happily support his daughter’s participation in gifted programs, but accessibility difficulties constituted a central barrier: I have no problem with my daughter participating [in a gifted program] as long as it takes place at the school. When gifted education programs are offered as extracurricular activities in centers for gifted children, it’s difficult for me because I have no one to drive her. The school needs to provide answers for gifted students living in unrecognized villages.
Suha described how a combination of educational and financial barriers complicated the nurturing of gifted children in Bedouin society: I think the Jewish sector invests more resources in children because Jewish families are smaller and have more money. When there are fewer children, more is invested in each child. In Arab society, when there are many gifted students in the family, the economic situation doesn’t allow for investing in all of them.
Nur also associated “giftedness” with “being Jewish.” From her perspective, Jewish parents not only had the financial resources to spend on extracurricular programs, they also had more trust in their children’s intellectual talents, “Maybe Jewish parents perceive their children as more capable or talented than Arab parents. Jewish parents have more resources to invest in their children. We [Arab parents] have many difficulties and less money to spend on our children’s future.”
The Role of School
The interview data revealed that all school principals recognized the importance of gifted programs for children’s educational future. Ahmed and Zaed, primary school principals, described the great importance they saw in identifying and nurturing gifted children, respectively: Our school supports all levels of students and strives for all students to receive the programs that are most suitable for them. Like any other student, a gifted student needs special resources to support his or her talents. At our school, we also support gifted children and ensure that they receive the required resources to develop their abilities. One of our school’s goals for the next couple of years is to increase the number of students identified as gifted, because we believe that the school’s population is heterogeneous and there are students with exceptional talents.
Principals assigned parents a key role in the identification and participation of Bedouin children in gifted programs. They emphasized the importance of increasing parents’ awareness of the advantages of gifted programs. As Iman described: Some parents aren’t aware of the concept of giftedness, even though their children are gifted. Their lack of knowledge prevents them from supporting their children. Therefore, I think it’s very important to raise awareness among parents, especially in the Arab Bedouin sector.
Principal Samira noted the school’s central role in raising parental awareness about giftedness: We guide the parents and increase their awareness of external gifted programs. From my personal experience, there didn’t used to be much encouragement of Bedouin families to participate in these gifted programs, but in recent years, more children have been signed up to take the gifted tests. In my opinion, this is due to the increasing awareness of the parents, especially young parents, who are often educated people and place emphasis on these programs. These parents help their children in preparing for the test.
Alongside the central role that the school has in identifying and promoting giftedness, the school principals reported economic and cultural barriers that prevented them from implementing gifted programs in schools. Zaed explained why the lack of financial and educational resources hindered the integration of gifted programs into his school: At our school, there’s no program for gifted students, but some students in the school participate in external programs. In my opinion, the gifted program is very good, but implementing it in our school would require a lot of investment in terms of resources and a professional staff trained in working with gifted children.
The interviewed school principals also raised concerns about the potential damage that gifted tests and programs could cause to schools. Muhamad, for instance, noted that operating a gifted program in schools might reveal the students’ low academic level. Therefore, some of his colleagues avoided the administration of gifted tests in their schools: In my opinion, a large proportion of school principals and teachers perceive the gifted screening test as an indicator of the school’s academic level. They fear that if students don’t pass the test, it will say something about their [the schools’] academic level. Therefore, they don’t encourage the participation of children in gifted programs. Also, in the community, I see that there isn’t enough awareness about giftedness.
Discussion
In the current study, we explored how Bedouin parents and school principals constructed and interpreted the concept of giftedness, and how this construction shaped their attitudes, perceptions, and practices regarding children’s identification and participation in gifted programs. Our findings indicate that despite the growing recognition of the importance of gifted education in the Negev Bedouin community, there are significant economic, social, and cultural barriers that hinder the identification and participation of Bedouin students in these programs.
Consistent with other studies with minority groups, the role of social capital in gifted education was emphasized in the current study (Pearman & McGee, 2022; Rasheed, 2020). Parents and school principals described several mechanisms through which their limited resources restricted children’s access to gifted education, including a lack of teachers’ and parents’ awareness of giftedness and gifted programs, economic hardships that impeded teacher training, the inability to support children’s preparation courses, a fear of social penalties if students fail the test, and a lack of transportation to gifted centers. Importantly, parents attributed their lack of financial and educational resources to inherent cultural aspects of Bedouin society (e.g., having large families), and they associated being gifted with “being Jewish.” Previous studies within the framework of critical discourse analysis or critical Whiteness have shown how the concept of “giftedness” has become synonymous with “Whiteness,” and how gifted education has served to maintain White privilege (Staiger, 2018; Stark, 2014). In their study of Black parents, Lamb and Hertzog (2025) emphasized the difficult experience of children participating in gifted programs “not made for them.” Namely, even when Black families did have access to gifted education programs, parents described difficulties in penetrating and navigating primarily White programs, experiencing discrimination, racism, and general cultural insensitivity. Parents expressed frustration in trying to understand the “White system” and navigating a system not created with their needs in mind. In line with the principle of Whiteness as property (Harris, 1993), the Bedouin parents in the current study perceived giftedness as both an identity and a property. They perceived Jewish parents as being more available to support their children and as having more trust in their children’s capacities. At the same time, gifted education was perceived as a form of property, and being Jewish and wealthy were the only currencies capable of attaining it.
The interviews suggested that parents and principals perceived the sources of giftedness as deriving from innate factors, environmental factors, or a combination of the two. Parents and school principals shared the belief (which is based, among other things, on the Qur’an) that giftedness is an innate, stable, and rare trait characterized by exceptional abilities (Mudrak, 2011). Studies have shown that middle-class parents often subscribe to “the ideology of natural giftedness” (Corbett & Corbett, 2018; Räty & Snellman, 1998), assuming that differences in academic performance are “nature-given.” Privileged groups have embraced the idea that only a small number of individuals, including their own children, possess true intelligence, using this belief to uphold social hierarchies and boundaries (Lorenzi-Cioldi & Clémence, 2001; Roda, 2015, 2017, 2025). Our results suggest that although parents and educators from underserved groups also seemed to construct giftedness as a rare, nature-given trait, they tended to exclude members of their own social groups from this extremely privileged group of children.
Importantly, as in other studies regarding minority parents’ attitudes toward gifted education (Gaztambide-Fernández & Parekh, 2017; Koshy et al., 2017; Vincent et al., 2010), many of the parents and principals in this study expressed positive views about gifted programs and saw them as a “springboard” for securing children’s educational and economic futures. However, consistent with previous studies (Matthews et al., 2014; Mudrak, 2011), some parents constructed giftedness as an unnecessary label that not only had no educational advantage but could also isolate children and put extra pressure on them. Constructing giftedness as a deviation from the normal developmental path of children (Elton, 2023) may play an important role in Bedouin parents’ referral of their children to gifted programs. The strong pressure to conform and the fear of social stigma associated with any kind of deviation and exceptionality (Fleischmann & Dabbah, 2019) may lead parents to downplay their children’s unique abilities and settle for high academic achievement within the regular school framework.
Interestingly, the more that giftedness was associated with academic effort and motivation, the more parents and principals believed that girls were likely to be identified as gifted. These findings align with STEM-related studies in Israel and worldwide (Blank et al., 2022; Charles, 2017), which have shown that in marginalized communities, where career choices are viewed as a means for social mobility rather than self-fulfillment (as in affluent Western societies), the number of girls in STEM tracks often surpasses that of boys. For example, Pinson et al. (2020) found that in Arab schools in Israel, more girls than boys studied physics, whereas the opposite was true in Jewish schools. Our results call for further investigation of the gender equality paradox (when gender gaps favoring male students are smaller or larger in more gender-equal countries; Abu-Asaad et al., 2025; Guo et al., 2024) in gifted education and its educational implications.
Limitations
This study had several limitations. First, our recruitment method, which relied on snowball and convenience sampling, resulted in a relatively small and homogeneous sample, mostly composed of educated individuals residing in urban areas. While we took several steps to address these concerns (e.g., by ensuring participation of parents from both genders and diverse levels of education and principals with different levels of management experience), including participants from unrecognized Bedouin villages may provide important insights into the effects of culture, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status on gifted education in underserved populations. Children living in unrecognized Bedouin villages suffer from a severe lack of essential education and health services (The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, 2019). This shortage of opportunities is even more prominent for girls (Refaeli et al., 2022). Due to sociocultural norms that expect women to be the primary caregivers, parents and educators discourage girls from continuing their studies beyond elementary school (Kaplan et al., 2014) or tend to ignore their “latent dropout” (i.e., students who are officially registered but do not attend school; Ben-Asher, 2020). It is important to examine not only the barriers to gifted education in this context but also the community, religious, cultural, and psychological resources that parents draw upon to navigate and address these challenges (Marey-Sarwan, 2026; Marey-Sarwan & Roer-Strier, 2017).
In addition, the current sample included only parents and principals of elementary school children. A systematic understanding of gifted education in the Bedouin population, including satisfaction with existing programs, experiences of inclusion and exclusion, and parental collaboration, requires the inclusion of parents and educators of adolescents and young adults. Recent studies focusing on Bedouin youth indicated multiple social, cultural, and educational challenges resulting from the tension between traditional expectations and emerging aspirations for autonomy and professional advancement (Abu-Gweder, 2024, 2026; Allassad Alhuzail, 2023; Allassad Alhuzail & Segev, 2023). Because giftedness and gifted education could be perceived both as collective and individual resources (Carter, 2021), it is crucial to examine how parents and educators of Bedouin adolescents, as well as the adolescents themselves, construct giftedness and how such perceptions inform their educational decisions. Finally, given the key role teachers play in students’ gifted identification (Kuykendall et al., 2023; Lee et al., 2022), the inclusion of homeroom teachers, school counselors, and subject teachers would provide valuable insights into the barriers preventing participation of Bedouin children in gifted programs.
Conclusions and Practical Recommendations
Previous studies, mostly based on large-scale, nationally representative U.S. samples, have attributed inequities in gifted education to multiple sociocultural and structural barriers, including poverty, peripheral geography, racial discrimination, language barriers, or inherent testing bias (Pham & Altman, 2024; Yaluma & Tyner, 2021; Young & Young, 2022). Because these studies have greatly relied on aggregate (school-level, district-level, or national-level) data, little is known about the role of parents and educators in the under-referral and under-diagnosis of giftedness in children from underserved populations (Johnson et al., 2024). The findings of this study suggest that the underrepresentation of Bedouin students in gifted programs in the Negev reflects an interaction between economic, social, cultural, and familial factors. Specifically, our findings suggest that when parents perceive giftedness as an innate and rare trait, and see themselves as unable to provide the necessary support to develop such traits, they may forgo gifted education even before their children have had the chance to be identified as gifted. These interactions should continue to be explored in large-scale quantitative studies. The current study contributes to the limited literature on inequality in the field of gifted education (Crawford et al., 2019; Goings & Ford, 2018) by shedding light on the referral process to identification tests and on the central role of the family and school in this process. Moreover, the study provides important insights into inequities in gifted education outside the United States.
Several recommendations arise from this study. First, there is a need to increase awareness among Bedouin parents and educators about the importance of gifted identification and the available programs. Second, gifted programs should be made more accessible and integrated into schools, as external programs are often perceived as foreign and inaccessible. Third, because parents from underserved backgrounds often have less formal and informal knowledge about the education system, and may lack self-confidence or trust in the educational staff (Cabus & Ariës, 2017; Cheadle & Amato, 2011), their involvement in schools is lower. Therefore, schools have a central role not only in raising awareness of gifted programs but also in supporting parents and strengthening their confidence in their child’s abilities. Bashara and Samara (2019), who examined giftedness in Israel’s Arab society, emphasized the importance of appointing an educational staff member to the role of “Excellence Promoter,” responsible for identifying outstanding students, developing unique programs for them, and tracking their progress. They also stressed the importance of training teachers in the development and instruction of unique programs for gifted and outstanding students. Finally, logistical solutions are critically important, such as providing transportation to gifted centers and school-led preparation for giftedness identification tests.
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-gcq-10.1177_00169862261459357 – Supplemental material for “There Is No Need for My Child to be Gifted”: Bedouin Parents’ and School Principals’ Constructions of Giftedness
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-gcq-10.1177_00169862261459357 for “There Is No Need for My Child to be Gifted”: Bedouin Parents’ and School Principals’ Constructions of Giftedness by Miada Argan and Ortal Slobodin in Gifted Child Quarterly
Footnotes
Ethical Considerations
Ethical approval for this study was obtained from the IRB of the School of Education, Ben Gurion University of the Negev (approval no. 1321) on May 10, 2021 and the Israeli Ministry of Education (approval no. 12821) on November 17, 2022.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: The study was funded by Duet Center, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Open Practices
The data analyzed in this study are not available for the purposes of reproducing the results. The code or protocol used to generate the findings reported in the article is not available for purposes of reproducing the results or replicating the study. There are no other newly created, unique materials used to conduct the research.
Artificial Intelligence Use
The authors confirm that no generative AI tools were used in the development of this article.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
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