This essay offers six reasons why the field of gifted education should retire the terms giftedness and gifted. Additionally, in the historical context of longstanding, severe, and pervasive racial and income inequities in the field of gifted education, the term Master’s Discourse is introduced and defined in this call to change terminology. Among the reasons to move on from the gifted terminology are its racist history; its association with underrepresentation; waning support for gifted programming; years of debate in the field over the use of these terms; issues with giftedness being narrowly defined by ability tests; and the need for language to evolve.
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SternbergR.DesmetO.FordD. Y.GentryM.GranthamT.,KaramiS. (2021). The legacy: Coming to terms with the origins and development of the gifted-child movement. Roeper Review, 43, 192.
