Talented Students and Resilient At-Risk Students: Similarities and Differences

This study compared academically talented students (n = 23) who were not at risk for school failure and resilient at-risk students (n = 27) on risk factors and protective/promotive factors. Participants’ risk status was determined by student assignment. The academically talented students were attending a summer program at a major research university and the at-risk students were graduates of a continuation high school for students who had had numerous infractions at regular high schools. As expected, the two groups differed on risk factors and on factors related to academic status. However, the groups did not differ on psychosocial variables related to positive functioning, suggesting that some of the factors that act as protective factors in at-risk youth may serve as promotive factors in gifted and talented youth. Students who are at-risk for school failure and students who are identified as gifted and talented often experience schools in very different ways, and these two groups seldom operate in the same sphere in school settings. Similarly, these two groups are rarely compared in the research literature. However, I have argued that resilient at-risk youth may share certain psychosocial characteristics with academically talented youth (Worrell, Latto, & Perlinki, 1999). Using the language of the risk-resiliency paradigm, these psychosocial characteristics act as protective factors for youth who are at risk, but serve as promotive factors for youth who are not at risk. In other words, the same characteristics that lead to outstanding performance in talented youth who are not at risk promote resilience in youth who are at risk. In this study, I compared academically talented students to resilient at-risk students on a variety of risk and protective/promotive factors. In brief, the risk-resiliency paradigm originated in the clinical literature on coping with stress and negative life events (see Garmezy, 1987; Rutter, 1987; Werner, 1989, 1990). Researchers in this field distinguish among risk factors and protective factors. Risk factors are “biological or psychosocial hazards that increase the likelihood of a negative developmental outcome” (Werner, 1990, p. 97), whereas protective factors are individual and environmental characteristics that “ameliorate or buffer a person’s response to constitutional risk factors or stressful life events” (Werner, 1990, p. 98). Vulnerability increases or decreases with the number of risk and protective factors that affect an individual, and an individual who is at-risk but does not succumb is described as resilient. Only a few studies have compared academically talented students and at-risk students on risk and protective/promotive factors. Worrell (1997a) compared 24 academically talented students attending a talent development program and 17 resilient at-risk students attending an alternative high school. He reported that the at-risk students differed from the academically talented group on eight of nine risk factors. The at-risk group had significantly lower GPAs, greater involvement in problem behaviors, lower rates of participation in extracurricular activities, and more frequent confrontations with parents. However, the groups did not differ on several factors, such as rates of receiving help from teachers and relatives, numbers of close friends, and global self-esteem. The only variables that the at-risk and talented groups differed on were academically focused ones, including scholastic competence and self-ratings of competence as students, with the academically talented students obtaining higher scores. These findings are in keeping with Hoge and Renzulli’s (1993) finding that the only consistent difference on selfconcept variables between gifted and non-gifted students is on academic self-concept. Worrell et al. (1999) compared students in a continuation high school (n = 33), an after-school mentoring program (n = 20), and a summer program for the academically talented (n = 50). Both the continuation school and the mentoring program students were at-risk for dropping out. These researchers reported that that the three groups did not differ on global self-esteem. However, the students in the mentoring and talent development programs obtained significantly higher scores on the Measure of Perceived Life Chances (Jessor, Donovan, & Costa, 1990) than the students at the continuation school. Worrell et al. suggested that the similarity between the mentoring program students and the talented students had to do with the former’s resilience— they chose to be in the mentoring program, which was not mandatory, perhaps in part because they had high hopes for the future, as did the talented students. Both the Worrell (1997a) and the Worrell et al. (1999) studies were conducted in urban areas. Worrell, Gibbons, Starks, and Nicosia (2003) reported similar findings in a sample of (continued on next page) Talented Students and Resilient At-Risk Students: Similarities and Differences