The Application of Differential Normative Criteria to the Gifted Education Screening Phase: Implications for Demographic Representation
Scholars and practitioners within gifted and talented education have devoted substantial effort to understanding and mitigating the disproportional representation of students from certain racial / ethnic, income, language, and disability groups. In mitigating this underrepresentation, most research has focused on the actual identification or evaluation criteria, with comparatively little research considering how the screening phase might be manipulated in order to facilitate the proportional identification of underrepresented groups. This paper uses numerical methods to evaluate if, and under what conditions, modified screening criteria can be used as a way to increase the representation of traditionally underrepresented groups in gifted education programs. The results show that this intervention has only a modest effect on reducing disproportionality. It can only have an impact when the identification process is poorly-designed at baseline.