Discusses a high school unit on First Amendment rights developed for a gifted students class in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. Describes the unit's origins and procedures, such as issues studied and the use of research projects, guest speakers, and field trips. Emphasizes students' interest in learning about their rights. Identifies critical…

Gifted children in the preschool and primary grades may demonstrate advanced abilities in the verbal areas in several different ways. Many gifted children show precocious oral language ability by talking early and with greater complexity and manipulation of language than their age peers. Some gifted children also demonstrate precocious reading…

When trying to explain the discrepancy between the numbers of white students in gifted education programs and the number of culturally diverse students in gifted education programs, it becomes apparent that there are multiple factors at play with the most prominent one being the identification process. Most districts begin the identification…

This study examined a national sample of classroom teachers, teachers of the gifted, administrators, and consultants from rural, suburban, and urban areas regarding their assumptions about the gifted identification process. Respondents indicated the degree to which they agreed or disagreed with 20 items that reflected guidelines for a…

Predominately White institutions of higher education have focused a considerable amount of attention on the underrepresentation of African American and other ethnically diverse students in colleges and universities. To address this problem, colleges and universities have focused not just on recruitment but also on the retention of African American…

In the spring of 1995 Northern Arizona University initiated a pilot program for a new content emphasis for elementary education majors. This new emphasis, "Diversity in Educational Contexts," is designed to prepare teachers to instruct the diverse children they will encounter in their public and private classrooms. The new program…

This text on the education of gifted children is organized into two parts--the first on curriculum principles and the second on applications of those principles. The first chapter examines such topics as theories of intelligence, qualitatively different curricula, and a comprehensive approach to curriculum. Chapter 2 considers several continuums…

This project explored university science students' career and educational plans and looked for causes of defection from science, with particular interest in possible sources of gender difference in defection rates. A survey of 164 Canadian undergraduate students in mathematics and basic sciences found that: (1) over three fourths of the students…

This newsletter examines the continuous progress (CP) curriculum, the primary characteristic of which is flexible pacing for the student. The newsletter notes some of the practical concerns limiting implementation of CP curricula, and how some schools have overcome them. It then discusses four issues that schools must address to employ a…

A follow-up study and evaluation were done on the effect of an annual 4-week academically intensive program for 50 St. Louis (Missouri) area high school junior and senior students. The program consists of two summers, the first offering general scientific experience and education, and the second providing students with the chance to conduct…

Project BETA provided intellectually gifted, limited English proficient (LEP) students with educational programs geared to their talents. The program also sought to instill in students a sense of pride in their native cultures through exposure to their arts, histories, and languages. The program's chief goal was to prepare all students for…

The challenges and rewards of dealing with the many types of students that can be found in today's English classrooms--gifted, handicapped, learning disabled, second language learners--are addressed in this focused journal issue. The titles of the articles and their authors are as follows: (1) "Help Me Help You" (L. Quitman Troika); (2) "Students…

A 1982 study revealed that American Indians comprise .8% of public school students, but only .3% of those participating in gifted programs, whereas respective White figures are 73.3% and 82%. Factors contributing to the inappropriateness of standardized assessment tools for identification of gifted American Indian students are neglect of…

The text focuses on identification criteria and characteristics of gifted and talented students in the context of educational programming. The section on characteristics discusses kinds of intelligence, indicators of giftedness, student characteristics that may pose difficulties for the classroom teacher (e.g., persistence, criticalness, and…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 17 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) reasoning strategies used by gifted and average fifth grade children in written discourse; (2) the effect of mode of discourse on the syntactic complexity of…