Multicultural gifted education:<i>A wakeup call to the profession</i>

Abstract

The integration of multiculturalism into such fields as education, counseling, and research has received much attention in recent years. Much has been written about the importance of multicultural education to the psychological, affective, and educational well‐being of racially and culturally diverse students. A review of the literature, however, indicates that the need for multicultural education has received little attention in gifted education. Given the paucity of literature on gifted education that is multicultural, the authors rely heavily on the general education literature. This article is a call to professionals in gifted education to give greater attention to multicultural education. The authors answer the following questions: Why do we need multicultural education? Who needs an education that is multicultural? What is an education that is multicultural? Which components are most important? When is multicultural education needed? Where is this type of education needed? How can we implement multicultural education? Finally, recommendations are offered to help educators of gifted students become more culturally aware, responsive, and skilled.