Economically Disadvantaged Students in a School for the Academically Gifted: A Postpositivist Inquiry into Individual and Family Adjustment

Abstract

In this paper, we report the results of an inquiry into the effects of the placement of five economical disadvantaged minority students from central Harlem, who were identified in kindergarten as potentially academically gifted through nontraditional means, in a school for gifted students. Achievement and aptitude test data and qualitative data collected during the students' first year at the school support the conclusion that the students were appropriately placed and adjusted well academically socially and emotionally. Follow-up data suggest that the students' academic careers have, in the six years since the original data were collected, for the most part progressed well. We present assertions that begin to explain why these students have succeeded academically despite being at-risk for educational disadvantage. These assertions concern the students themselves, their families, their school, and Project Synergy, through whose activities the students were identified as potentially gifted.