Children from minority communities are four times less likely to be recognised as highly gifted than their white peers, according to new research carried out for the education ministry.

Children who are identified in primary school as having an IQ above 130 are streamed into “plus classes” with more challenging lessons and learning materials. Around 2% of all children fall into this category.

But a study by research agency Scaliq found that children’s chances of being labelled “highly gifted” were heavily dependent on their parents’ background and social status.

Based on their findings, they contrasted two fictional case studies of children with high IQs. “Diederick”, a boy growing up in a financially stable household with European, Dutch-speaking parents, had a 60% chance of being picked out, while the chance for “Jalila”, a girl with parents who spoke poor Dutch and lived in poverty, was just 15%.

The researchers studied more than 5,000 children at 29 schools in all primary school classes apart from year 1, from the ages of six to 12. Teachers were asked to provide personal details of the children, including whether or not they were regarded as highly gifted.

The children were then given a test to see if they performed better than their peers. Just under half the children who scored more than 130 on the IQ scale were already in the “gifted” category, with boys more likely than girls to be recognised.

More than half of Asian children (53%) were already recognised as having high IQs, compared to 46% of those with European backgrounds and 34% of children from African, Turkish, Surinamese and Caribbean families.

Late birthdays

Socio-economic status also influence teachers’ judgment, with half of children from well-off families being recognised as highly intelligent compared to one-third of those raised in poorer households.

Children born later in the year were more likely to be overlooked, with teachers estimating their IQ one point lower for every month after the start of the school year that their birthday falls.

“Our research has shown that the gut feeling ‘we don’t see all the smart children’ is correct,” the researchers commented in their report, (On)gezien. “Children who grow up in deprived circumstances are more frequently underestimated than children who are better off at home.”