A phenomenological study of gifted cross-cultural kids at an international school : exploration of intersecting identities

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There are several common characteristics between cross-cultural students and gifted students (Gallagher, 2019; Sheard, 2008). At the same time, there is limited research into practices of international schools when identifying and supporting these highly-mobile gifted students (Gallagher and Curtain, 2017; Robinson, 2006). This lack of evidence suggests that many international schools do not cater for the needs of culturally and linguistically (CLD) gifted students by offering tailored programs for differentiation. Framed within the Third Culture Kid (TCK) identity construct, this phenomenological study investigates the experiences of identified gifted students who are being educated in an elite American-curriculum international school in South America. Utilizing qualitative data, this study seeks to answer the following question: how do gifted Cross-Cultural Kids understand the intersection of their gifted and cross culture identities? This study contextualizes that question inside the organizational environment of the school that used selection criteria based on the Cognitive Abilities Test (CogAT), the Measures of Academic Progress (MAP), and the Renzulli Scales for Rating the Behavioral Characteristics of Superior Students (RSRBCSS) for a gifted program. Through maximum variation sampling, 9 gifted third-culture students from middle and high school who have spent a portion of their academic careers in international schools were selected for interviews.

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Ed. D.

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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License. Copyright held by author.