Socioeconomic Inequality and Giftedness: Suppression and Distortion of High Ability

Abstract

Severe socioeconomic inequality strongly suppresses and distorts the discovery of aspirations and the concomitant development of talents among the gifted. More comprehensive understanding of this suppression and distortion is available through a wide-ranging interdisciplinary search for research findings and theories that illuminate economic, ideological–political, historical, philosophical, and psychological contextual influences on bright young people. This theoretical synthesis draws from multiple disciplines to reveal some of these contextual influences and then provides some recommendations for ways in which educators and policymakers might attempt to counteract some of the most pernicious effects of growing inequality on the gifted.

Keywords:

• aspirations
• dogmatism
• gifted
• inequality
• interdisciplinary
• merit
• psychopathy
• socioeconomic stratification