3.5.1 Social Construction of Gifted Students in Federal Policies

The proposed presentation will examine the social construction of gifted students as a policy target group. As noted by Ingram and Schneider (1993) how citizens and policymakers understand different social groups shape policy remedies which emerge during the public policy process. Specifically, Schneider and Ingram’s (1993) democratic policy design approach highlights the role that public perception and political access plays in the policy development process with target groups such as gifted children being "constructed" as deserving (or undeserving). In turn, the target group’s status influences the policies that materialize within the public policy process. The proposed presentation will utilize the public discourse associated with the National Defense of Education Act (NDEA) (1958) to illustrate how public perceptions, myths, academic reports, and the sociopolitical environment shaped the governmental policies for gifted children. The NDEA provides an ideal case study to demonstrate the social constructivist policy perspective as the United State’s federal government did not establish a federal definition for giftedness until the Marland Report (1972) (Jolly & Robbins,2016). As such, social constructivist policy strategies minimize the vagueness associated the NDEA’s conceptualization of ableness/giftedness and describe the perceived nature of giftedness in the national policy realm. From a methodological standpoint, the proposed presentation relies on discourse-historical approach methods. The discourse-historical approach assumes discourse is bound by and interacts fully with the sociopolitical environment (Wodak, 2017). Additionally, as the discourse-historical approach originates from a critical foundation, this methodology emphasizes the role of discourse critique integrating contextual elements throughout the analysis (Wodak, 2001). As such, the proposed presentation utilizes legislative testimony as well as newspaper articles associated with the NDEA to examine how public discourse constructed gifted children as a NDEA’s policy target group. In turn, the proposed presentation addresses how discourse-based social constructions can support and diverge from the enacted legislation. A social constructivist public policy framework does not assume an American political structure. While socio-political context varies by country, a social constructivist lens recognizes the value of examining how time-bound and place-bound perceptions of different social groups influence the policies which are adopted. As such, the proposed presentation seeks to provide practitioners and researchers with a foundational understanding of the social constructivist approach to public policy and the tools needed to leverage their knowledge in the public policy process.

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