Elitism

Elitism is the belief that a select few are superior to others. Charges of elitism have been made against gifted education since the field's inception, and the history of attitudes, assumptions, policies, and practices suggests that too often the charges have been justified. During the past 25 years, however, there has been a shift in definition, identification, and programming policies, such that the charge of elitism is considerably less valid than it once was. This entry describes traditional views that gifted education is elitist and how those views have changed.

Early work that focused on exceptionally advanced ability assumed that giftedness, creativity, and talent were innate and permanent. It focused on attempts to measure and quantify these attributes in order to identify certain people as gifted, creative, [Page 308]and/or talented relative to others, and advocated that labeled children be provided with enriched learning opportunities, often in segregated classrooms or special schools. Not surprisingly, many educators, as well as parents of children excluded from the special categories, considered the enterprise elitist, and found it untenable. That children from certain minorities, and from rural and less privileged backgrounds, were less likely to be assigned to the preferred categories added to the weight of the claims of elitism. Somewhat predictably, all of this led to political pressures to reduce or eliminate funding and support for gifted programs.

During the past quarter century or so, many factors have come together to challenge the perspective that some children are born more intelligent, creative, or talented than others. One factor was the popularity of Howard Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences, the idea that people can be intelligent in a number of different domains. Another challenge came from the neurosciences, with discoveries that the human brain is built by a complex and dynamic interaction between constitutional and environmental factors. Research findings in cognitive psychology and brain development show that although individual differences do appear to exist at birth, they are more malleable than once thought. Intelligence is not as unidimensional or as fixed at birth as was earlier assumed, but is considerably more domain-specific, plastic, and environmentally responsive.

Similarly, researchers studying expertise have discovered that ability is incrementally developed, built on effort, practice, and persistence, along with attitudes of problem finding and problem solving. Allied with this, studies of motivation are demonstrating that attitudes toward intelligence make an enormous difference in achievement outcomes. There is now a robust body of evidence demonstrating that people with a growth mindset—believing that intelligence develops, that ability is constructed one step at a time, with appropriate opportunities to learn and hard work over time—do better academically, as well as in many other areas of their lives, than do those with a fixed mindset, who believe that intelligence is fixed at birth, and differentially apportioned.

Another difference between the historic approach and the developmental approach concerns perceptions of the origins of giftedness, creativity, and talent. Although the historic emphasis was on genetic superiority, most psychology and education professionals today agree that both nature and nurture are critically important, and are increasingly focused on the developmental nature of intelligence, its dependence on opportunities to learn, and the importance of the goodness of fit with the environment. As we move from a notion of innate genetic causality toward understanding the importance of environmental dimensions interacting over time, giftedness, creativity, and talent become less mysterious and exclusive, and more widely available.

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