Economically disadvantaged students in a school for the academically gifted: A postpositivist inquiry into individual and family adjustment

In this paper, we report the results of an inquiry into the effects of the placement of five economically disadvantaged minority students from central Harlem, who were Sed. in kindergarten as potentially academically through nontraditional means, ill a school for Istudents. Achievement and aptitude test-data and qualitative data collected during the students' first year at the school support the conclusion that the students were appropriately pla ced and adjusted well academically, socially, and emotionally. Follow-up da ta suggest that the students' academic careers have, in the six years since the original data were collected, for the most gait progressed well. We pr esent assertions that begin to explain why students have succeeded academic ally despite being at risk for educational disadvantage. These assertions c oncern the students themselves, their families, their school and Project Sy nergy, through whose activities the students were identified as potentially gifted.