The associations between child characteristics and family functioning and academic achievement and social competence in inner-city gifted children

A cross-sectional quasi-experimental design was employed to examine the associations among temperament, prior academic achievement, gender, family system maintenance, family personal growth, family constellation, socioeconomic status, parental employment and parental distress to academic achievement and social competence of inner-city gifted students. A convenience sample of twenty-nine eighth grade students (12--14 years old) was recruited from a middle school gifted program in an inner-city community of a mid-Atlantic state. Fifty-one percent of the students were African American (n = 15), 37.9% were White (n = 11), 6.9% were Bi-racial (n = 2) and 3.4% were Asian (n = 1). Sixty-five percent of the students were girls and 34.5% were boys.;Parent informants reported on the temperament and social competence of the students, family system maintenance and personal growth and parental distress. The students' prior and current academic achievement was obtained from the students' academic records. Preliminary data analysis conducted with one-sample t-tests showed that the temperament of the male and the female students, compared to normative samples, were higher in task persistence and males also were lower in both negative reactivity and activity. In addition, both male and female students had higher social skills than normative samples. Also compared to normative samples, the families in the study were higher on intellectual-cultural orientation and moral-religious emphasis.;Pearson product moment correlations, which ranged from .44 to .53, demonstrated that prior academic achievement in both reading and mathematics was associated with students' academic performance in eighth grade both as measured by classroom grades and standardized test scores. The temperament dimension, task persistence, correlated .49 with social competence.;These findings have implications on how educators and practitioners within the gifted field can better identify underserved populations of students who are likely to be successful in gifted programs. The use of a multi-dimensional assessment methodology or tool is one strategy to better identify and admit underserved populations of gifted students into gifted programs. Temperament, particularly task persistence, warrants greater consideration as part of a multi-dimensional assessment in the pre-admittance process of gifted programs due to its relationship to social competence.