Missing Stars? Quantifying the Gender Gap in the Assessment of Gifted Students

Female students are less likely to be identified as intellectually gifted than male students when the identification process follows a two-stage procedure. We posit and quantify two mechanisms that explain this gender gap. First, at any level of IQ, but especially at high levels of IQ, male students are more likely nominated for assessment due to higher salience of externalizing behaviors. This difference accounts for roughly 70% of the gender gap in giftedness identification. Second, the remainder of the gap is explained by the use of lower referral thresholds for male students, all else equal. We discuss policy implications.