Moving Beyond Borders: Toward Liberatory Possibility in Advanced Education

• In Event: Bordering Difference and Reimagining Inclusive Futures: Global Struggles Toward Intersectional Justice

Abstract

Objectives
This paper examines how advanced education systems perpetuate ableist, racialized, and monolingual borders that exclude multilingual, twice-exceptional (2E), and thrice-exceptional (3E) students from gifted programming. It investigates how exclusion is embedded not only in policy but in cultural narratives of “brilliance,” and offers recommendations that reframe giftedness through relational, linguistic, and embodied lenses. The paper also illuminates the emotional and spiritual labor of Latina educators who resist these systems from within, positioning their work as critical to educational transformation.

Theoretical Framework
The paper draws from Gifted Critical Race Theory (GTCrit; Novak, 2022), LatCrit, and Borderlands theory (Anzaldúa, 2015), with an emphasis on nepantla as a space of tension and potential. It also engages post-qualitative theories of hauntology and spiritual activism (MacLure, 2020; Anzaldúa, 2015) to recognize invisible labor, intuitive knowledge, and relational resistance. Translanguaging (García et al., 2017) is integrated as both a pedagogical practice and an epistemological act, especially in the lives of 2E/3E multilingual students.

Methods
This work is part of a three-pronged dissertation, which includes a quantitative study of Florida school district data, a systematic literature review on multilingual students in gifted education, and a post-qualitative visual testimonio study with six Caribbean Latina educators using pláticas, visual co-construction, and layered narrative analysis. Methodologically, it aligns with Latina feminist and post-qualitative traditions that honor relationality, emotion, and creativity as valid modes of inquiry.

Data Sources
Data includes statewide student and teacher demographic and gifted identification information, 25 peer-reviewed empirical studies on gifted identification and multilingual learners, and transcripts and visuals co-created with six Latina educators who teach in gifted, bilingual, and/or special education settings.

Results
Findings reveal barriers and disproportionate representation within these elitist spaces. Translanguaging and code-switching—such as a student translating IEP terms to a parent in Spanish—are powerful cognitive and relational acts that are rarely recognized in traditional gifted assessments. In study one, teacher race and district demographics significantly influence gifted identification rates for Students of Color. In study two, some of the literature frames multilingualism as a barrier rather than a strength, 2E/3E students are nearly absent from research, while several other studies indicate the importance of enrichment and teacher preparation in developing culturally sensitive and validating pathways and programs. In study three, Latina educators resist exclusion through culturally grounded pedagogy, spiritual practice, and linguistic advocacy. Their testimonios challenge linear ideas of professional development, framing their work as healing, communal, and often invisible.

Scholarly Significance
This study contributes to disability studies in education, bilingual education, and critical gifted studies by reframing “advanced” as a culturally constructed and relational category. It makes visible the emotional, linguistic, and spiritual labor that multiply marginalized students and educators perform. It also proposes Schoolwide Enrichment and translanguaging pedagogies as models for disrupting deficit discourses and building liberatory learning spaces. By foregrounding the borderlands of language, race, and dis/ability, this paper responds directly to AERA’s 2026 theme of “unforgetting” by amplifying voices too often excluded from scholarly discourse and policy reform.

Author

• Alejandra Amaris Fernández Morgado, Florida International University