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1990 34: 111Gifted Child QuarterlyRichard L. Luftig and Marci L. Nichols

Assessing the Social Status of Gifted Students by Their Age Peers  

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Assessing the Social Statusof Gifted Students by Their Age Peers

Richard L. LuftigMiami University

Marci L. NicholsBatavia Local Schools

Batavia, Ohio

AbstractThis study investigated the social status of gifted chil-dren enrolled in an educational pull-out program withsame-aged peers not identified as gifted. Both groupscompleted a sociometric nomination instrument in

which they rated classmates. Results were analyzed interms of the percentage of students assigned to popu-lar, rejected, or neglected categories by peers. A 2 (gift-ed) x 2 (gender) analysis was used. Gifted boys weremost popular while gifted girls were least popular. Boysand girls not identified as gifted were rejected more thangifted pupils, and boys were more rejected than girls.

While the effects of educational experiences and placementon the academic achievement of gifted students has been asubject of study for some time, study of the influence of thesevariables on gifted children’s social development and peerrelations is relatively recent. Research has emerged which hasalternately portrayed gifted children as at-risk of being reject-ed or ignored or as possessing more positive peer relationsthan their nongifted counterparts (Brody & Benbow, 1986;Coleman & Cross, 1988). Some studies have shown that thepeer relations of gifted students, while perhaps suffering dur-ing childhood years, recover (at least for boys) during highschool (Austin & Draper, 1981). Other studies depict adecline in peer relations for gifted students throughout child-hood and adolescence (Coleman & Cross, 1988).The social relations of gifted children seem to follow cer-

tain behavioral patterns. For example, gifted children oftenestablish attachments and relationships with other gifted chil-dren, with older nongifted peers, and with adults more easi-ly than they do with nongifted age peers (Janos et al., 1985)However, they often complain of not having enough friendslike themselves and assert that being &dquo;smarY’ has made it

difficult for them to be friends with less gifted peers. Finally.these children often complain of feelings of loneliness andof being socially distant from peers (Maddux et al., 1982).

Although many experts acknowledge that a degree ofunpopularity and isolation may be a natural consequence of(and may even be a requisite for) being gifted and creative(Bloom, 1985), others believe that gifted pupils need to getalong better with peers who may not necessarily be gifted(Roedell, 1984). Many schools have attempted to integrategifted children as much as possible with age peers while at

the same time &dquo;pulling-out&dquo; these gifted students during theschool day for segregated, special instruction (Epstein, 1979:Howley, 1986).The present study assesses the degree of social acceptance

that gifted children have with age peers in integrated academicsettings. In order to accomplish this goal, the social relationsof gifted children were examined in relation to social statustypes delineated by Kenneth Dodge, John Coie, and theirassociates (Coie & Dodge, 1983; Dodge et al. , 1983) . Theseresearchers have identified four social status types: Popular,Rejected, Neglected, and Controversial. Popular childrenare those who are actively nominated on &dquo;most liked&dquo; socio-metric items while unpopular or rejected children are frequentnominees on negative or least liked sociometric questions.Neglected children are largely ignored by peers; they are notnominated on either most liked or least liked questions.Finally, controversial children, usually a very small number,are chosen both as most liked and least liked persons.

While attempting to avoid oversimplification, certain socialbehaviors have been correlated with each social status type(Coie & Dodge, 1983; Luftig, 1987a). Popular children tendto engage in group cooperation and leadership-type behaviorsin which they provide positive reinforcement, facilitate activi-ties, and &dquo;shine the light&dquo; on others. Rejected individuals tendto be aggressive (either physically or verbally) and act intru-

Putting the Research to UseThe areas of self-esteem, social skills, and perceived

loneliness are topics of importance for children’s men-tal health. Gifted children in particular must strike a bal-ance between being true to their abilities and interestsand maintaining good social relations with their less gift-ed peers. In the present research, gifted boys werefound to be popular with their nongifted peers but gift-ed girls proved to be least popular of all the ability lev-el/gender groups. These results indicate that gifted girlsmay be at significant social risk and point to the needfor teachers and parents to help gifted girls develop ade-quate social skills. Additionally, educators need to besensitive to the conflicting societal messages given togifted females in terms of utilizing their abilities and ta-lents while at the same time being passive and non-assertive in their social behaviors.

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sively and often impulsively toward others. Finally, neglect-ed children tend to be shy, withdrawn, and socially inactive.These children tend to take a &dquo;wait and hover&dquo; approach toothers and remain on the periphery of most social activities(Rubin et al. , 1989, Luftig. 1988b).A variety of research studies conducted with children indi-

cates that the proportion of neglected children ranges from10% to 18% of the general childhood and adolescent popu-lation (Asher et al. , 1984; Luftig 1987b, 1988a) . Compara-ble rates also exist for unpopular/rejected children (Coie &Dodge, 1983). The issue addressed in the present study isthe proportions of popular, unpopular, and neglected giftedchildren as rated by their age peers not identified as gifted.A number of hypotheses exist. If, as some suggest, gifted

children are often impatient perfectionists who become dis-turbed when others make mistakes, or if they give the ap-pearance of being unable to tolerate the mistakes of less giftedpersons, then a large proportion of such gifted individuals maybe actively rejected by nongifted peers (Perrone, 1986).However, if gifted children tend to become withdrawn andshy, &dquo;hiding&dquo; their natural abilities behind a veil of silence andinactivity (see VanTassel-Baska, 1989a), they might becomeignored and neglected by peers. Finally, engaging in proso-cial, cooperative, and reinforcing behavior with others wouldpredict a degree of popularity with their nongifted coun-terparts.

This study assessed the social status of gifted children andtheir age peers in the framework of Coie and Dodge’s socialstatus types. It measures the success of gifted children as theyattempt to interact with their nongifted age peers who makeup the majority of their school social contacts.MethodologySubjects

Subjects consisted of a total of 496 students: 64 gifted stu-dents (13%) and 432 nongifted students recruited from twoschool districts in southwestern Ohio. Of the gifted students,24 were male and 40 were female. Of the 432 students notidentified as gifted, 207 were male and 225 were female. Thegifted students represented all of the gifted pupils in these dis-tricts in grades 4-8 who returned signed parental consentforms. Giftedness was defined by a procedure employed bythe school districts in which determinants such as measured

intelligence, achievement test scores, grades, and teacher andparental nominations were used. Based upon these variables,the students had been designated as &dquo;gifted and talented&dquo; bypsychologists and educators in the school districts in whichthe pupils were enrolled.The gifted students utilized in this study were all enrolled

in a &dquo;pull-out&dquo; educational program. This meant that for themajority of the school day, gifted students were integratedin regular classroom activities with their grade and age peerswho were not identified as gifted. The remainder of the schoolday (one-two hours daily), the gifted pupils were &dquo;pulled-out&dquo;of their regular classes and received special instruction andactivities.

The 432 students not identified as gifted represented peersand classmates with whom the gifted students interacted forthe majority of the time in school.

InstrumentsAll of the students (both gifted and nongifted) completed

a peer nomination form designed to measure peer status andrelative popularity. This instrument consisted of six separatequestions in which students nominated classmates with whomthey wished to interact in a variety of social situations or inwhich they were simply asked to nominate the people theyliked &dquo;best&dquo; and liked &dquo;least&dquo; in the class. The nominationquestions asked of students are in Table 1.

Table 1

ProcedureAll children were tested in their regular class groups. They

were seated in a semi-circle so they could view each otherwhile making nominations. In addition, children who wereabsent from school that day had their names placed on theblackboard so they also could be nominated.

Each question was read orally by the experimenter as thestudents silently followed along. After each question was read,the children had up to two minutes to nominate up to threechildren for a given question. If a child did not know howto write or spell a peer’s name, a proctor quietly assisted thechild in making the nomination. The children made theirnominations with little or no difficulty.

ScoringStudent nominations were tallied for each item, and stu-

dents were given a composite popularity and unpopularityscore. Standard scores were then computed for each childin the class for the variable of popularity (Liked Most) andunpopularity (Liked Least). The standard scores for LikedMost and Liked Least items were used to generate Social

Preference and Social Impact scores.The Social Preference and Social Impact scores were then

used to define four extreme social status types. Children desig-nated as Popular were those who received a Social Prefer-

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113

ence standardized score greater than 1.0, a Liked Most

standardized score greater than 0, and a Liked Least stan-dardized score less than 0. An unpopular or Rejected groupof children were identified as those children receiving a So-cial Preference score less than -1.0, a Liked Least stan-

dardized score greater than 0, and a Liked Most standardizedscore less than 0. A Neglected group was identified as chil-dren who received a Social Impact score less than -1.0 andLiked Most and Liked Least standardized scores less than 0.

Neglected children differed from rejected children primarilyin that rejected children received many more Liked Leastnominations than did the neglected children. Finally, a groupof Controuersial children were identified. These children

received a Social Impact score of greater than 0 and LikedMost and Liked Least standardized scores which were each

greater than 0. Members of the controversial group were thosewho received a great number of both Liked Most and LikedLeast nominations. However, less than 1% of the total sub-

ject pool were included in the Controversial category, andthis group was dropped from further analysis.

Table 2

Means and Standard Deviations of Percentages ofPopular and Rejected Students by Grade and Gender

Results

Due to the low number of gifted students at each gradelevel, analysis conducted by grade level would be mislead-ing. Hence, grade level was dropped from further analysis.Table 2 shows the means and standard deviations of children

judged to be Popular, Rejected, or Neglected by Group (giftedvs. nongifted) and Gender. A 2 (group) x 2 (gender) analy-sis of variance was conducted for each of the three social sta-tus types. For the Popular variable, a significant interactionwas found (DF 1, 537. F ~ 9.12, p < .003) . For the variableof Rejected, significant main effects were found for group (DF1. 537. F = 8.03, p < .001) and for gender (DF 1, 537,F = 3.72, p < .05) . A greater percentage of nongifted students

were rejected by peers than gifted students (p< .O1), and boyswere more actively rejected by peers than girls (p< .O1). Forthe variable of popularity, Newman-Keuls post-hoc analysisindicated that gifted boys were the most popular of the abili-ty x gender groups and gifted girls were the least popular(p< .01), Nongifted boys and girls did not differ from eachother in popularity. However, nongifted girls were significantlymore popular than gifted girls, who were the least popularof all of the groups (< .01). No significant main effects werefound for the variable of Neglected status.

DiscussionOver the years a variety of stereotypes have arisen regard-

ing the social functioning and social status of gifted persons.One viewpoint depicts gifted students as being unpopular withpeers. This viewpoint holds that gifted students often engagein a variety of social behaviors, such as verbal aggression, im-patience, and bossiness/intrusiveness, which results in thechild becoming actively rejected by peers. The opposite sideof this stereotype is the one which holds that gifted studentspossess talents and levels of expertise which result in theirbeing popular and well liked by their nongifted peers. Final-ly, a third stereotype exists which depicts the gifted child asa shy, socially inactive person who is largely invisible and ig-nored by peers.Which, if any of these viewpoints approaches reality? The

present research suggests that the belief that gifted studentsare actively rejected by peers is inaccurate. In the presentstudy, students not classified as gifted had a greater proba-bility of being rejected than gifted pupils. Research conduct-ed on the behaviors associated with rejection indicate thataggression (either physical or verbal) is probably the greatestdeterminant in children’s being actively disliked by peers(Dodge et al., 1984; Dodge, 1986; Luftig, 1988b). A varie-ty of research findings appear to indicate that gifted studentsdo not typically act in ways viewed by others as physicallyaggressive or threatening (Lehman & Erdwins, 1981). Rather,these students are considered by peers to be cooperative anddemocratic (Lehman & Erdwins, 1981; Newland, 1976).Thus, it appears that at least in this study, gifted students ina pull-out program suffer from less active rejection from age-peers than their nongifted counterparts.The belief that gifted children are largely ignored by peers

was also not supported by the present research. Gifted stu-dents were no more ignored by age peers than their nongift-ed counterparts. This finding makes sense in light of studieswhich have depicted gifted pupils as generally outgoing, so-cially adept individuals (Adler & Mueller, 1987; Anderson,1981). Gifted children often make their presence known andfelt among their peers and teachers (Weiss & Gallagher,1980). They may be liked or actively rejected, but gifted pupilsare seldom ignored.

Perhaps most interesting is the finding of an interaction be-tween giftedness and gender on the variable of popularity.It was found that while gifted boys were the most popular

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in terms of sociometric nominations of the group-gendercategories, gifted girls received the lowest percentage of nomi-nations on the popularity questions. While the number of gift-ed students in each gender category in the present study wasrelatively small, this finding reinforces results of other studieswhich found that female gifted students comprise an at-riskpopulation in terms of their continuing academic achievement(Denny, 1987; VatiTassel-Baska, 1989a), emotional andmental health functioning (Reis, 1987), and affective and so-cial functioning (Connelly, 1977; Serbin & O’Leary, 1975).What might be the causes for the relative lack of popularity

among the gifted girls in the present study? A number of pos-sibilities exist. Some researchers believe that schools and so-

ciety send &dquo;mixed messages&dquo; about the role of gifted females(Garrison, Stronge, & Smith, 1986). On the one hand theyare expected to be docile, supporting, passive, and nurtur-ing, and on the other they are expected assertively to developtheir own talents. This conflict often leads to ambiguous peerrelations betwen gifted girls and their nongifted counterparts.The gifted girls may not be actively disliked, but they are notchosen as popular in peer nominations either (Fox, 1977;Fox et al. , 1976) .

Additionally, gifted girls may behave in relation to nongift-ed girls in ways that jeopardize their social standing. Forexample, gifted girls may give the impression of being aloof,bossy, or &dquo;show-offs&dquo; (Connelly, 1977). They also may beresented for appearing &dquo;smart&dquo; and lose popularity becausethey strive for academic excellence (Bauman, 1986; Sadker& Sadker, 1985). There is evidence to suggest that gifted boyshide or mask their giftedness by being funny and highly ver-bal (Luftig & Nichols, 1989).The present research seems to indicate that gifted girls are

at-risk in terms of maintaining popular social status with non-gifted peers. These girls may at a later date acquire eitherneglected or rejected status by either withdrawing from socialintercourse or becoming actively aggressive in an attempt torecapture lost social status. In any event, the relatively lowpopularity among gifted girls may be a cause of concern andan area of future study and remediation in the field of giftededucation (VanTassel-Baska, 1989a, 1989b).

Authors’ Note:This research was supported by the Miami University

Center for Human Development, Learning and Teaching.The authors would like to thank the teachers and staff of Bata-via Local School District, Batavia, Ohio and the Clermont-Northeastern Local School District, Batavia, Ohio for theirsupport and help in conducting this research. These includeLinda Sebastian, teacher of gifted, and Thomas Rice, Su-perintendent, Clermont-Northeastern Local Schools and PaulSallada, Principal, Batavia Elementary School and JamesFite, Superintendent, Batavia Local Schools. Additional in-valuable computer and technical support was provided byJoseph Simpson, Ph-D., Assistant Manager, Academic Com-puter Services, Miami University.

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