Segregating the "Gifted" in Charlottesville: The Founding of Quest, 1976–1986

• In Event: The Racial Construction of Giftedness

Abstract

The implementation of gifted programs in the 1970s provided a way for school divisions to circumvent the aims of desegregated schooling called for in Brown v. Board. This study examines the implementation of one such system in a Southern school. Additionally, the study situates the founding of this gifted program in a national social and legal context involving fears of educational stagnation and White flight from public school systems. Using primary and secondary sources, this study highlights the attitudes of national policymakers, which significantly limited school division’s abilities to integrate while also providing funds for gifted classrooms that segregated “exceptional” children using racially- and socioeconomically-biased measures.

Author

• Margaret Thornton, Princeton University