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2.3.6 What Do Teachers in Denominational Schools Want to Know About Gifted Students and Gifted Education?
Federal law in the United States (USA) does not require gifted services in public education at a national level (Zirkel, 2005). Because mandates for identifying and serving gifted children are dependent on state regulations, great variability exists in access to gifted programs across the nation (NAGC, 2015). The state of Arkansas mandates gifted services in public schools and provides an interesting context to examine how the private church-affiliated schools offer services to their most advanced students and how their denominational teachers view gifted students and gifted education. Public schools are required to have teachers with a license in gifted education provide specialized services to students in grades K-12. In contrast, church-affiliated schools do not have systematic initiatives for preparing teachers to meet the needs of their most advanced students. In a search of the leading journal on Catholic Education, no research studies that examined the Catholic perspective on giftedness nor on the delivery of services to advanced learners were located, although individual schools have documented services in the ephemeral literature (Escaprio, 2017; Hatcher, 2012). A single study by Ellison and Hallinen (2004) concluded that grouping practices were used differently in American Catholic and American public schools with variable effects, but their analyses did not focus on gifted students nor teacher perspectives. Other countries differ. For example, Australia has a well-developed Catholic school system which reports many specialized programs for advanced learners. A search of the Australian literature generates policy documents which describe schools’ perspective on giftedness and gifted education (Parliament of Victoria, 2012; Tasmanian Catholic Education Commission, 2008. The purpose of our study was to investigate USA denominational teacher knowledge, skills, and interest in identifying and serving advanced learners in a state with a public-school mandate. Participants included teachers in the Catholic Diocese and individual Baptist, Lutheran, and Episcopal schools. Through an electronic survey and follow-up interviews, the study has the potential to inform the field of gifted education on several levels. First, the results provide insight regarding USA denominational teacher perspectives on gifted and talented children and their level of preparedness to implement gifted services. Second, the study serves as the basis for a professional development intervention that could be replicated in other denominational schools. Finally, the study provides a baseline for USA denominational teachers that could be used in comparative studies of denominational teachers in countries where awareness and services are more developmentally advanced in church-affiliated schools.