“Deprived and disadvantaged”: federal advocacy for gifted youth in the United States, 1967–1987

In 1972, the United States Office of Education (USOE) released a lengthy and unprecedented report about gifted education in response to a Congressional mandate. Both Congress and the USOE lamented the inadequate state of gifted programmes in American schools and urged that gifted education should become a greater national priority. In this essay, we argue that the federal government revived human capital and national security concerns in claiming that the unfulfilled potential of gifted and talented Americans had made the United States vulnerable. Better accommodating students with high abilities therefore became a paramount political agenda item. At the same time, amid efforts to eliminate poverty and facilitate greater equality of educational opportunity, both the legislative and executive branches of the federal government strategically portrayed the gifted and talented as a neglected and historically disadvantaged group in need of assistance. In establishing a broader and multi-faceted definition of giftedness, moreover, the USOE paid particular attention to racial minorities who were also gifted as a way of making its case. Such arguments fit within the political climate of the Great Society in directing public resources to historically marginalized groups. Deviating from longstanding characterizations of the gifted as inherently white and privileged, the U.S. government in the late 1960s and early 1970s portrayed them as racially diverse, “deprived,” “disadvantaged,” and warranting special educational opportunities. This example of federal advocacy thus marked a notable shift in the image of the gifted student in the United States.