Students’ demographic variables

In addition to teacher variables, the influence of several student background variables on teacher judgments and beliefs about giftedness has been investigated. The following section addresses students’ age, which is confounded with the level of school teachers teach (i.e., elementary vs. secondary school level), as well as students’ gender and social class.

1.3.4.1 Age: elementary vs. secondary school level

Fatouros (1986) and Jacobs (1972) argued that younger children, such as preschool children, might be more difficult to identify than older children. However, in Acar et al.’s (2016) meta-analysis, the accuracy of teacher judgments of giftedness was not significantly different among preschool, elementary school, or secondary school teachers.

Furthermore, the (non-significant) tendency was for higher accuracy levels among younger students than older ones. Acar and colleagues reasoned that elementary school teachers have more occasions to observe students than secondary school teachers.

Beliefs about giftedness among elementary and secondary school teachers seem to be rather similar in many aspects, although differences have also been observed:

Elementary and secondary school teachers both connect high cognitive abilities and the willingness to learn with giftedness (Endepohls-Ulpe, 2005; Hany, 1997; Lee, 1999;

Persson, 1998). Creativity was mentioned by elementary school teachers (Miller, 2009), but was not a central giftedness characteristic for secondary school teachers (Hany, 1997).

In a study by Copenhaver and McIntyre (1992), both elementary and secondary school teachers emphasized the inquisitive minds of gifted students. However, elementary school level teachers identified negative characteristics and an extensive vocabulary as typical for gifted students more often than secondary school teachers. The authors reasoned that elementary school teachers have more heterogeneous groups and, therefore, might notice

these characteristics more easily. However, concerning negative characteristics, Baudson and Preckel (2013a, 2016) showed that elementary and secondary school teachers both supported a disharmony hypothesis of giftedness, meaning that they believed gifted students were intellectually superior but with emotional and social maladjustments.

However, as students’ age and the level of school teachers teach are confounded, studies about whether teachers at different school levels see differences in giftedness across the lifespan are rare (e.g., elementary school teachers’ beliefs about giftedness in secondary school students or secondary school teachers’ beliefs about elementary school students).

Therefore, more research is needed whether teachers’ beliefs differ in relation to students’

age.

1.3.4.2 Gender

Teacher judgments of whether or not a student is gifted often tend to favor boys over girls, although girls seem to obtain better school grades (Duckworth & Seligman, 2006). For example, seven percent more boys were nominated as gifted in a study by Hernández-Torrano, Prieto, Ferrándiz, Bermejo, and Sáinz (2013). When teachers were asked to describe gifted students (Endepohls-Ulpe & Ruf, 2005) or indicate whether they have taught gifted students (Heller, Reimann, et al., 2005), teachers named a boy twice as often than a girl. Moreover, when teachers were asked to nominate fictitious students for gifted education based on vignettes, Bianco, Harris, Garrison-Wade, and Leech (2011) reported that more boys than girls were nominated as gifted. However, in Siegle and Powell’s (2004) study with case vignettes, students’ gender was not associated with teachers’ nomination decisions for gifted education.

Students’ gender seems to be connected to teachers’ beliefs about giftedness. In Baudson and Preckel’s (2016) study, which used case vignettes as well, gifted and average-ability boys were rated as more intelligent than gifted and average-ability girls.

As the authors argued, these gender differences might be in part related to findings that teachers tend to attribute boys’ success more to (innate) ability and girls’ school achievements more to effort (Fennema, Peterson, Carpenter, & Lubinski, 1990; Siegle &

Reis, 1998). Bianco et al. (2011) used identical vignettes that differed only with regard to students’ gender and found that teachers perceived the girl’s social competence as lower than the boy’s. Teachers thus believed that the girl was not ready for gifted education.

However, Endepohls-Ulpe (2008) did not find gender differences in teachers’ ratings of

vignette cases. Instead, teachers associated social maladaptation with giftedness. But the author stated that gender stereotypes impact students’ social behavior and thereby indirectly affected teachers’ beliefs about giftedness.

Results are inconsistent concerning beliefs about whether boys and girls are differently gifted in different domains: For example, girls were believed to have higher verbal abilities than boys (Hinnant, O'Brien, & Ghazarian, 2009; Siegle & Reis, 1998).

In return, boys were believed to have higher ability in mathematics than girls, although this result was found in only some studies (e.g., Li, 1999; Ziegler, Kuhn, & Heller, 1998), but not in others (e.g., Hinnant et al., 2009; Siegle & Reis, 1998). Furthermore, Siegle (2001) indicated that teachers tend to see giftedness more in students who do not match expected gender stereotypes.

1.3.4.3 Social (i.e., socioeconomic and ethnic) background

Teacher judgments about giftedness seem to differ in relation to students’

socioeconomic background, thereby disadvantaging students from families with low socioeconomic status: McBee (2006) had a dataset containing data for all public school students in a US state during the year 2004. In his study, the accuracy of teacher judgments was lower for low SES students (i.e., who received free or price-reduced lunch) than for high SES students (i.e., whose parents paid for lunch). Brighton et al.

(2007) stated that the following beliefs and foci are reasons why gifted students from low socioeconomic backgrounds and with less preschool educational experience are often overlooked by teachers: Teachers often hold rather traditional beliefs about giftedness that include a broad range of knowledge, an extensive vocabulary, and the ability to work independently (Miller, 2009; Moon & Brighton, 2008; Speirs Neumeister, Adams, Pierce, Cassady, & Dixon, 2007). They direct their attention more strongly towards students’

deficits than their strengths (Brighton, Hertberg, Moon, Tomlinson, & Callahan, 2005).

Furthermore, their expectations about students’ academic achievement are connected to students’ behavior, dress, speech patterns, and the congruence of parents’ communicated education-related values with the values of the teachers (Brighton et al., 2007).

With respect to different cultural backgrounds, the aforementioned study by McBee (2006) indicated that US teachers were more accurate in nominating Asian American, Native American, and Caucasian students as gifted than Hispanic and African American students, which might be due to racism or cultural ignorance. Specifically, cultural

ignorance was debated in the context of teachers’ beliefs about giftedness: Teachers rarely consider environmental and cultural factors in their views of giftedness and might therefore not be sensitive to expressions of giftedness among students from certain cultures that are not their own (Speirs Neumeister et al., 2007). Peterson and Margolin (1997) had middle school teachers who were mainly Caucasian discuss which students they would nominate for a gifted education program. Comments about students’ verbal skills, personality and family status stood out. Many students from minority groups were overlooked because teachers used the ideals and values of the dominant Caucasian culture in the US to guide their judgments of giftedness. They generalized the values of the mainstream group across all groups without awareness that the ideals, values, and thereby the expressions of giftedness among some minorities might be different.