SE Gifted Females and Males
Characteristics and Support
Gifted Females
- Cultural stereotyping
- Gender roles
- Conflicting messages
- Lack of role models
- Declining confidence in abilities
- Conflicting expectations from teachers and parents
- Peer pressure to hide abilities and intelligence
Some teachers often have less tolerance for girls who call out answers in class, ask numerous questions, and are confident in their opinions and willing to argue. (Kerr, 1994)
Girls are traditionally socialized in school and at home to be
- Obedient
- Agreeable
- Submissive
As a result, girls have a tendency to hide their intelligence and downplay their abilities in order to conform to the socially accepted stereotypes of femininity. (Ryan, 1999) Think this is old research? Start a discussion… do girls think it is OK to appear smarter than the boy they are dating? Ask your students if any of them have ever tried to hide how smart they were, so they would not be a “nerd”!
Suggestions for Meeting the Needs of Gifted Girls
Communicate with parents:
- The abilities of their daughter
- Importance of math and science for higher education and careers
- Encourage them to identify and address the sources of gender bias
- Organize peer support groups for girls
- Math and science clubs
- Connect them with other girls who share their same interests
- Avoid praising girls for their neatness or behavior
- Point out examples of their excellent work and achievements
- Correct them if they attribute their accomplishments to luck
Additional Suggestions
- Provide and encourage opportunities to use leadership abilities
- Provide role models and mentors from nontraditional careers
- Discuss gender stereotypes and the mixed messages that society broadcasts about femininity, intelligence, and achievement
- Provide a safe environment for girls to share confusion and fear
- Recruit girls to participate in advanced courses and extracurricular activities related to math, science, and technology
- Provide counseling that includes career options and balance
- Support early gifted identification and programming
- Provide opportunities for independence and risk-taking
- Read biographies of eminent women
- From kindergarten to grade 12, use spatial reasoning strategies to build skills needed for math and engineering
Gifted Males
- Are pressured to demonstrate athleticism with peers. They learn that athletic ability makes intelligence acceptable.
- Act out when bored; bully others
- Learn best through movement, action, and tactile activity
- Hide creativity and sensitivity to fit in
- Interrupt and demand more attention from others
- Blame teacher or subject for bad grades
- Become less involved in leadership opportunities as they progress through school
- Pursue careers in math and science areas
- And sometimes, not so much. The point to remember is that it is not always easy to be gifted, and students may deliberately try to hide their giftedness, especially if they are being teased about it.
Suggestions for Meeting the Needs of Gifted Males
•Expand instructional strategies to include more: speaking and listening in teaching reading, use more technology, greater amount of physical activity in lessons, less lecture and more spatial/diagrammatic lessons, include books high in action
•Provide accelerated learning in areas of interest.
•Provide opportunities for movement throughout the day.
•Make available activities for boys who are not interested in athletics (Chess Club, Robotics Clubs, Science Olympiad, etc.)
•Offer leadership training for gifted boys.
•Counsel boys to explore various career and occupation options.
•Match boys with mentors who can support them in goal setting (coaches, high school/college boys looking to mentor, neighbors, male teachers, etc.)
•Provide gifted boys with role models who have intellectual depth.