Special Populations

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Culturally Diverse Gifted Students
Clark (1988): Growing Up Gifted

General Characteristics of Culturally Diverse Gifted Students
"Culturally diverse gifted children differ in many respects, but they do hold certain mental traits in common (Gallagher & Kinney, 1974):"

1. The ability to manipulate some symbol system held valuable in the subculture meaningfully
2. The ability to think logically, given appropriate data
3. The ability to use stored knowledge to solve problems
4. The ability to reason by analogy
5. The ability to extend or extrapolate knowledge to new situations or unique applications.

General Strategies

1. Use mentors to tutor.
2. Help them to develop questioning, introspective attitudes.
3. Help them to understand and explore the problems they may face as they become upwardly mobile, as they try to align their cultural values with those of the dominant culture, as they try to develop their own individuality and establish their personal and cultural identity.
4. Help them to cope with peer pressures not to succeed, when they exist
.
5. Help them to remediate any areas of skill that they are lacking, especially limited language skills.
6. Give them opportunities to explore a variety of career options.
7. Help them to deal with excessive pressures to succeed.
8. Help them learn to value all persons, regardless of cultural or sexual identity.
9. Give them opportunities to share their ideas, attitudes, and values.
10. Help them to learn of the strengths of each culture and the unity of all people.