A persistent dilemma at all levels of education is the underrepresentation of African American, American Indian, and Hispanic/Latino students in gifted education and advanced placement (AP) classes. Research on the topic of underrepresentation has tended to focus on African American students, starting with Jenkins's (1936) study, which found that despite high intelligence test scores African American students were not formally identified as gifted. For over 70 years, then, educators have been concerned about the paucity of Black students being identified as gifted. During this timeframe, little progress has been made in reversing underrepresentation. This lack of progress may be due in part to the scant database on gifted students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). In 1998, Ford reviewed trends in reports on underrepresentation spanning 2 decades and found that African American, Hispanic/Latino American, and American Indian students have always been underrepresented in gifted education, with underrepresentation

Black males and females are consistently underrepresented in gifted programs. Just as unfortunate, countless reports and studies indicate that too many Black males are not succeeding in school settings. A scholar identity model, grounded in various achievement-based theories, is shared in this article as one solution to addressing the educational and social plight of Black male adolescents. In addition to presenting the model, suggestions for prevention and intervention are provided.

Black males as a group experience disproportionate amounts of school failure. Compared to Black females and White males, for example, Black males have the highest dropout rates, poorest achievement, and lowest test scores. Further, they are sorely under-represented in gifted education and over-represented in special education. Of those Black males who do succeed in school settings, certain characteristics seem to be evident. In this article, I share these characteristics in what I am calling a scholar identity model. First, however, I discuss achievement barriers that many gifted Black males seem to face. The article ends with some recommendations for educators as they work to improve the educational status of Black males identified as gifted.

Gifted education proponents contend that gifted students have exceptional or special needs, as do students receiving special education services. Without appropriate services-services designed to meet needs-gifts and talents may not be nurtured and may, ultimately, be lost. Accordingly, Congress passed legislation (i.e., the Javits Act of 1988, reauthorized in 1994) that recognizes the loss of gifts and talents specifically among low socioeconomic status (SES) students and culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD) students when not identified as gifted. The overarching goal of the act is to support efforts to identify and serve CLD students and low-SES students.Despite such initiatives as the Javits Act and associated grants, the demographics of gifted education have been resistant to changegifted education is as racially and economically homogeneous today as Journal for the Education of the Gifted • Vol. 34, No. 1 132 it was a half century ago (see Ford, 1998;Ford, Grantham, & Whiting, 2008a). In various reports, the U.S. Department of Education has reported the consistent underidentification of African American, Latino, and American Indian students as gifted and, likewise, they are poorly represented in Advanced Placement (AP) classrooms (College Board, 2008). In both programs, underrepresentation is at least 50%-although they make up 17% of the total population in public schools, African American students are only approximately 8% of the population in gifted education. This underrepresentation is well beyond statistical chance and above the Office for Civil Rights' 20% discrepancy formula stipulation (see Ford & Frazier Trotman, 2001). In this discussion, two caveats are in order: First, it should be noted that underrepresentation is greater for African American 1 students than for other CLD groups; thus, African American students have been discussed and studied more than any other diverse group; and second, it should be noted that Black males are more underrepresented in gifted education than all student groups (U.S. Department of Education, 2006).Borrowing from the literature in higher education, Ford (1994) proposed that the representation of African American (and other CLD) students can only improve when educational professionals focus on the twin and inseparable goals of increasing recruitment and retention. More directly, she urged educators to follow concepts, models, strategies, and efforts that exist in higher education to resolve underrepresentation problems. Recommendations were that educators must: (a) find culturally sensitive instruments, strategies, policies, and procedures to effectively recruit African American students; (b) find more effective and inclusive ways of retaining these students in gifted programs once recruited; and (c) collect data on gatekeeping factors in both the recruitment and retention of Black males and females in gifted education. She argued that underrepresentation must be examined in a comprehensive way so that initiatives could be specific and direct.The majority of ...

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