Delinquency, Dropouts, and Giftedness: Delinquency, Dropouts, and Giftedness Tawiah Finley TEG 505- Supporting the Emotional Needs of the Gifted Professor Jessica Cannaday Delinquency and Giftedness: Delinquency and Giftedness The term “delinquent” is frequently used interchangeably with terminology such as at-risk, underachieving, and maladjusted. All highly subjective verbiage. Descriptions of “delinquent” students are often intertwined with assumptions based on culture, language, and ethnicity. Gifted delinquents differ little from peers in the skill of planning crimes, nature of offense, rate of recidivism, or frequency of reoffending. (Seeley, 2004) Susceptibility to Delinquency Two Opposing Points of View: Susceptibility to Delinquency Two Opposing Points of View Gifted as more susceptible Presence of overexcitabilities and intellectual acuity produce more sensitivity to environmental factors and challenges of adolescence Creative, divergent thinkers with fluid intellectual ability not taught more likely to engage in risky behaviors Gifted as less susceptible Higher ability translates into increased self-reflection and ability to foresee and prevent negative behavior and consequences Convergent thinkers with strong achievement motivation and ability to take in information less like to engage in risky behaviors Slide 4: Accurate enumeration and examination of gifted dropouts is greatly affected by our ability to define the group. Gifted Dropouts Low Persisters: Students who persist in completing high school despite low achievement. May represent underachieving gifted students. Stopouts: Students making academic progress that still decided to not complete their education. High Persisters: Students who persist in completing high school with high achievement. Sometimes confused for gifted students. Why Gifted Students Dropout: Why Gifted Students Dropout Gifted students frequently cite teacher indifference or irrelevance of the mandated curriculum in decisions to dropout (Seeley, 2004) Gifted males mainly cite school-related and job-related reasons for dropping out, while gifted females cite personal problems involving family or peers (Renzulli & Park, 2000) Gifted students face similar roadblocks to complete educational programs, but are less like to be referred to school support structures meant to address these issues (Harvey & Boardman, 1936) The Delinquency-Dropout Connection: The Delinquency-Dropout Connection Gifted students who receive poor grades due poor behavior rather than concept attainment or strictly academic performance often demonstrate further misbehavior Cycles of behavior based grading and misbehavior producing poor grades effectively creates a push out program for gifted students (Seeley, 2004) Solutions to the problem: Solutions to the problem Potential solutions include recognizing the characteristics of gifted students at risk of dropping out or delinquency early, changing school culture and support structures in ways that make them more responsive to the specific needs of gifted students, and providing an appropriate and challenging curriculum that is relevant to gifted students. Slide 8: All students deserve the right to learn at their highest level of readiness- even gifted students.