Su búsqueda

Giftedness as a construct is increasingly found relevant in all of life’s endeavors. It is a construct with a long history in schools. As institutions tasked with the academic preparation of young people, schools must consider the practical application of any conception adopted. The constraints of schools and their institutional purpose determine what giftedness is in that setting. The optimal conception of giftedness within these boundaries provides for the development of exceptional abilities, while supporting the psychological well-being of students. It requires a commitment from schools to provide resources, supports, and opportunities that foster the development of students’ talents, with an eye toward their success beyond the K-12 experience. Students must also commit to their own talent development, bringing their abilities, interests, and the psychosocial skills required to bear in their approach to the school-provided opportunities. This chapter addresses the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders in a practical, school-based conception of giftedness. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

In this chapter, the authors present a comprehensive conception of talent development that draws from research in the psychological sciences and is applicable across diverse domains, from academics and athletics to the visual and performing arts. The model is distinguished by the following components: (a) recognizing the varied beginnings of domain trajectories from the earliest manifestations of talent to expertise and beyond; (b) promoting the role of opportunities not only inside, but outside, and beyond school; and (c) the increasing importance of malleable social and mental skills as well as insider knowledge as individuals progress to higher stages of performance and creative productivity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

This chapter describes a qualitative, comparative case research study conducted with 15 eminent women who have contributed important and creative work across multiple disciplines. These scholars, scientists, artists, innovators, historians, and psychologists range in age from their mid-40s to their mid-60s. Each is regarded as being in the top-tier of creative work in her discipline and has received multiple awards, honors, and accolades. Their paths to eminence demonstrate that their creative productive giftedness results from a combination of their abilities, interests, motivation, and focus, as well as their determination to excel in their creative work, and make a positive difference. Over time, all of these eminent women gained knowledge about their abilities as well as self-confidence, leading to enhanced self-perceptions as they developed their creativity, abilities, interests, and forged ahead with future plans. Their personality characteristics enhanced their creativity productivity, with demonstrated determination, motivation, creativity, leadership, love of their discipline, and decisions to take and thrive on risks. Their creative drive developed as a result of their passion for their work, and their motivation to make positive change and improve their disciplines. Each of the women studied acknowledged her high levels of creative productivity and giftedness, and each could explain her drive and creative processes. This study contributes and enhances earlier work by the author on talented and eminent women, finding that they have a great passion for their work and their diverse and meaningful personal lives, as they purposely shape their extraordinary journeys to creative work and eminence. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

The development of Kronborg’s Model of Talent Development for Eminent Women was underpinned by the Model of Adult Female Talent Development. Additionally, the purpose of the feminist research which underpinned Kronborg’s Model was to explore the lives of ten eminent women in seven talent domains in order to gain knowledge and understanding from the women’s reflections, as to what contributed to their talent development across the lifespan. Various psychological and sociological themes were identified in the Model which influenced the talent development of these gifted females leading to their eminence in diverse talent domains. Based on theories and models of talent development, including Kronborg’s Model, strategies for identifying and teaching gifted students for talent development are presented. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

The interactions between living in the urban context and being bilingual are factors that have inhibited recognizing students’ potential and abilities to be identified as gifted. Changing beliefs and adopting practices that enable urban bilingual students to have the opportunity to access and experience differentiated curriculum and challenging language development strategies can be defined as a process for urban bilingual students to overtly express the traits that can identify them as gifted learners. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

In this chapter, I argue that conceptions of giftedness are problematic in that they derive from what Dai and Chen have identified as “the gifted-child paradigm,” which has dominated the thinking of scholars and practitioners in gifted education since the field’s advent. However, I believe that the gifted-child paradigm encompasses beliefs that are untenable and that have rendered the field nugatory. The central tenet of the gifted-child paradigm is the seemingly unexceptionable belief that there is a distinct subgroup in our school-age population known as gifted students. I argue that this foundational belief is belied by, among other things, the fact that, about a century on, there is no consensus as to what a gifted student is, as the table of contents of this volume reveals. Instead, I believe that giftedness is a social construction unanchored to a body of empirical data and unhelpful in developing defensible curriculum and instruction for capable students. I suggest that our field’s focus should not be existential (“Is this student gifted?”) but should rather be educational (“What form (s) of instruction are appropriate for this student at this time?”). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

Due in large part to technological advances, society has changed in unprecedented ways and at a breakneck pace. Yet conceptions of giftedness and models for gifted education have not kept pace with these changes. One conceptual change widely applied to other fields is the use of sociocultural theories, which are rarely applied to the study of and education for giftedness and talent development. Such perspectives emphasize the interrelated nature of the individual and their social and cultural contexts. A sociocultural approach to giftedness focuses less on the individual student and more on the ways in which that student is supported by and interacts with their immediate social context. The emphasis in a sociocultural approach to talent development is primarily on the need to provide enriched contexts for students as they interact with each other and cultural tools, resulting in the emergence of talent. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

For curricula to stay relevant in the coming years, the gifted must actively prepare themselves for the future. This chapter proposes a multidimensional developmental conception of giftedness based on talent development synthesizing models offered by prominent scholars. It proposes a novel way of teaching in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE) programs in schools or ability grouping in heterogeneous classes. It links theory to practice and adds an innovative component defined as future thinking literacy. It illustrates how the Multidimensional Curriculum Model (MdCM) could be applied in elementary, middle, and high school in stages, to develop future thinking literacy, from interdisciplinary through multidisciplinary to the transdisciplinary level of an innovative school subject named “Future Studies.” (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

The aim of this chapter is to provide a different perspective on talent development, based on the ethnic-linguistic diversity of the understudied Andean countries. The current status of gifted education and talent development in the population living under highly vulnerable conditions of Andean society will be explored, under the frame of a comprehensive analysis about the needs of the gifted children in Latin America. Multicultural diversity in the Andean societies may easily lead to polarization due to the poverty conditions in which the majority lives. In order to make a significant contribution, a developmental, cross-cultural, inclusive approach is critical to conceptualize gifted education, and to explain talent development in this part of the world. Studies about the identification and differentiation programs for the gifted are analyzed, and the status of young scholars coming from low socio-economic and ethnic minority groups will be discussed. Results of on-going studies about variables related to gifted performance will be included. Plus, the challenges of gifted education in Latin America that underline the advocacy efforts to serve the indigenous population with equity will be presented. Implications for future research and public policies to serve the gifted students are also considered. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

In this chapter Finnish conceptions of giftedness and talent are presented. The Finnish conceptions are explored in the context of an educational system in which a strongly rooted egalitarian ethos and individualistic values are concurrently present. The teachers’ and students’ conceptions related to giftedness and intelligence and conceptions in the national core curriculum for basic education are discussed in the frameworks of domain-specific and developmental theories of giftedness. The implications of Finnish conceptions of giftedness and talent for teaching and learning in school are discussed. Differentiated teaching is advocated as a promising approach for educating gifted students in a Finnish context. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

This book brings together eminent and emerging scholars to present cutting-edge research on diverse conceptions of giftedness and talent from a range of international perspectives. It covers classical views, emphasizing IQ, but also seeks to move the academic debate on from the common exclusive emphasis on IQ-based skills. In each chapter the contributors address both theoretical advances and practical applications for administrators, teachers, and parents. The editors conclude by integrating the different points of view and showing ways in which major ideas, even when given different names, can be integrated to provide a holistic and integral viewpoint on giftedness and talent. This book will appeal to students and scholars of creativity, giftedness and gifted education; as well as to practitioners, teachers and education policymakers. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: cover)

One of the ongoing challenges for gifted and talented education is that the measures used to select students for advanced educational opportunities rarely identify those most likely to make creative contributions later in life. The smartest students are rarely the most inventive. Conversely, extremely creative people are often overlooked as average or without obvious potential during their educational years. A need exists to understand what factors mediate the relationship of talent to creative potential so that better ways of fostering creative talent early can be devised. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

We argue for a wide range of innate differences in ability in any domain, and that children with high levels of ability in a particular domain share three characteristics: they learn rapidly (precocity), they are intensely driven to learn (a rage to master), and they learn differently from typical children (they march to their own drummer). In the visual arts, high levels of ability have been most often noted in the ability to draw realistically. We show that this ability is independent of IQ and present some evidence that this ability is related to local processing skill. We also note one case study of a child who showed all three characteristics of giftedness but whose drawings were abstract rather than realistic. Thus it is possible that there are two routes that gifted child artists follow―one the early representational/realism route and the other the early abstraction route. We conclude the chapter by discussing our recommendations for how artistically gifted children should be taught and present the Reggio Emila approach in Italy as an excellent approach to the education of both typical and gifted children. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved) (Source: book)

This qualitative research study sought to understand how Latino parents use parental academic socialization (Hill & Tyson, 2009) and consejos (Delgado-Gaitán, 1994; Alfaro et al., 2014) as forms of home-based parental involvement to converse about education. A phenomenology approach was used to research and analyze data to describe the lived experiences of Latino parents raising academically gifted children middle schoolers while engaging in academic discourse. This study used semi-structured interviews with sixteen Latino participants who were US-born (n = 7) and Mexico-born (n = 9) from a large urban school district in a Midwestern city. The following major themes emerged: 1) parental academic socialization, 2) consejos, and 3) other educational messages. As it pertains to Theme 1, results showed Latino parents instill values, expect their gifted child to study for college, explore high schools and careers, teach responsibility and self-advocacy, and desire for a professional career. In regards to Theme 2, results indicated that Latino parents discuss better opportunities in the US, adolescent witness their parents' adversities, and instill a positive mindset to "do your best" or echarle ganas through the use of storytelling. Theme 3 showed that parents discussed supporting their child and have concerns about friends, physical safety, and their social-emotional challenges related to giftedness. This study contributes new information about how Latino parents utilize parental academic socialization and consejos to convey the importance of education and support their child's academic trajectories through developmental and educational perspectives. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The importance of developing the cognitive and affective needs of gifted students to help meet their academic needs as well as support them in achieving to their full potential has been well-established by past research. It is also confirmed by the literature that gifted and talented students have unique social-emotional needs and that the school environment plays an essential role in meeting gifted students' needs. To better serve gifted students, schools must ensure that general education teachers are knowledgeable and supportive of the distinct cognitive and affective development of these students in conjunction with their academic needs. Different factors influence the way teachers interact with gifted students, which include their attitudes and perceptions of giftedness and gifted education. It is necessary for researchers and other stakeholders to acquire a deep understanding of the attitudes and perceptions of general education teachers toward giftedness and gifted education as such an understating can aid policymakers, administrators, and education professionals in helping these teachers to create the appropriate learning environment to support these children. While these concepts have been examined in the Western context, their exploration has been limited in Saudi Arabia. Therefore, this study was undertaken to investigate the attitudes of Saudi elementary school general education teachers toward gifted students and gifted education, as well as their perceptions of giftedness. The study sample comprised 141 teachers who completed a cross-sectional online questionnaire that also included four open-ended questions to assess their attitudes and perceptions. The results of this study found that the participants indicated positive attitudes toward supporting the needs of gifted students and toward providing special services to gifted students. However, the participants were found to be uncertain about some of the special services (e.g., acceleration) that the literature states can be useful in supporting gifted students and about challenges gifted students might face (e.g., rejection by others). While most of the participants exhibited some lack of awareness regarding the unique affective needs of the gifted, they did indicate some understanding of giftedness as a multifaceted construct and of certain positive social and emotional characteristics of gifted students. The study's results suggest that more training in gifted education is required for general education teachers in Saudi Arabia, not only regarding basic information about gifted education and curricula, but also on how to meet both the academic and affective needs of these students. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

This study examined the existence of implicit racial bias among public school teachers within the gifted referral process. Public school teachers from urban, suburban, and rural school districts surrounding a large northeastern city were be provided vignettes of gifted students demonstrating "typical" and "hidden" giftedness. The names and races of students within the vignettes were randomized to represent either a White male student or a Black male student. Univariate and multivariate analyses were utilized to determine the existence of significant differences in perceptions of giftedness and need for referral among teachers. In contrast to the hypotheses of the study, vignettes describing Black "typically" gifted students were rated as significantly higher than White "typically" gifted students. Black students also did not experience a significant decrease in ratings of giftedness and need for referral when described as "hidden" gifted. Lastly, results demonstrated a significant interaction where White students experienced a significant increase in both ratings of giftedness and need for referral when described as showing signs of "hidden" giftedness compared to their White "typically" gifted counterparts. Further discussion of these results along with imitations and considerations, most importantly the presence of social desirability bias, can be found at the end of this work. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved)

This dissertation examines how autobiographical narratives by/for persons with mental illness draw from set of cultural clichés (topoi) I call "Mad Genius" rhetoric. As popular as it is controversial, Mad Genius rhetoric imagines an age-old link between "madness," or apparently problematic mental states, and extraordinary gifts of creativity, intelligence, and other talents. I ask: How is Mad Genius rhetoric taken up by real mentally ill people, especially women, in self-referential texts? What conditions encourage authors to construct Mad Genius personae in life writing, and what rhetorical purpose do such personae serve? Examining these questions through a lens of mental health rhetoric, I build case studies grounded in four highly influential mental illness memoirs: Susanna Kaysen's Girl, Interrupted, Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind, Nana-Ama Danquah's Willow Weep for Me, and Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation. I argue each author's narration enacts a Mad Genius persona at the nexus of her severe psychic pain and her personal gifts, explicating both how she draws on Mad Genius topoi in her writing and the contextual factors that apparently encourage her to do so. Specifically, my studies explore four discrete Mad Genius topoi: 1) the Tortured Artist, which posits that genius leads to madness; 2) the Brainiac, which posits that madness confers genius; 3) the Survivor, in which madness and genius are thought to share a common source in external trauma; 4) the Ex-Gifted Kid, in which madness/genius are thought to be innate and inextricably intertwined. As a preface to my case studies, each chapter also analyzes Mad Genius rhetoric in some contemporary pop culture archive, emphasizing both the enduring popularity of these four topoi and the centrality of auto/biographical narratives in their widespread circulation. Notions of personal specialness do seem to carry mentally ill authors through acute crises, but my readings reveal the rhetorical functions of Mad Genius, demystifying its enduring popularity amid broader cultural stigmas against mental illness. Reading these popular books as individualized responses to systemic rhetorical exclusion, I conclude that Mad Genius topoi are evidently effective, yet ultimately unsustainable frameworks through which to cope with severe psychic pain. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved)

The focus of this research study was to explore barriers, if any, faced by parents or legal guardians who are of Latinx background and speak Spanish as a primary language or are bilingual speakers of Spanish and English; barriers that limit their understanding of, and involvement in, their gifted child's academic life. This study was guided by a qualitative, case study design. The primary investigator hosted focus group interviews at a Magnet middle school in Southern California. The groups consisted of 25 parents or legal guardians of bilingual (English/Spanish) or Former English Learner students enrolled in a school serving 6th-8th grades. The primary investigator interviewed Latinx Spanish-speaking parents or legal guardians of gifted students regarding their perception of their child's giftedness, parental involvement in schools, and fostering their child's exceptional abilities. Parents and legal guardians described children as creative, intellectual, and highly intelligent. Key themes such as Student Performance, Language Proficiency, Socio-Emotional, and General Intellectual Ability were strong indicators of giftedness. Barriers such as language and education inhibited parent and legal guardian ability to understand their child's giftedness, which resulted in their inability to adequately contribute to the development of their children's talents and advocate for the appropriate services for their children. However, they recognized the importance of being involved in their child's academic life and the importance of nurturing their "dón" or "gift." La Familia is the foundation and core of Latinx culture; and, without a strong foundation, children lack guidance, confidence, and awareness to tap into their gifted abilities. Providing Latinx parents with the proper tools and resources to appropriately identify gifted characteristics andtraits could lead to early identification and intervention for students in schools and home. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The field of gifted education is consistently divided on how to best serve the 5-10% of students who demonstrate natural abilities above that of their same-age peers in an educational environment. A lack of direction, funding, and resources combined with contradicting research has left school districts in the U.S. struggling to identify the best method to serve gifted students to meet their academic, social, and emotional needs. Defining giftedness through the talent development models of the DMGT by Gagné (2000) and the megamodel of talent development by Subotnik et al. (2011) explain that students are born with innate gifts that need to be fostered and supported in order to move them towards talent or eminence. Combining that with Bandura's (1977) concepts of the social cognitive theory and self-efficacy, educators are left to discover ways to create a supportive environment, provide psychosocial coaching on intrapersonal skills, and cultivate the formation of a positive self-efficacy for gifted students to reach their potential. This illustrative case study focused on using social and emotional learning competencies within a gifted, self-contained elementary classroom to evaluate the effectiveness of meeting these goals. This study discovered that implementing social and emotional learning lessons, sharing circles, and reflection journals led to positive gains in the social and emotional learning competencies, possibly moving students towards talent or eminence. Other findings discovered that the social and emotional competencies are best taught as interwoven and scaffolded skills and that students benefit from taking part in the planning and delivering of lessons and discussions throughout social and emotional learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)

The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study is to explore educators' descriptions of gifted learners' academic abilities and gifted behaviors (above average abilities, task commitment, creativity, and gifted behaviors in the classrooms) when completing academic tasks in the Western and Midwestern regions of the United States. The study's conceptual model was Renzulli's Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness (1978, 2005) which provides educators with interweaving supports for gifted learners. The research questions were: how do educators of gifted learners describe gifted learners' above-average abilities, task commitment, creativity, and gifted behaviors when completing academic tasks in the classroom? How do educators describe and implement the teaching of gifted learners with above-average abilities, task commitment, creativity, and gifted behaviors to support academic tasks? The sample included 12 educators working with gifted learners. This study used a qualitative descriptive design to gain an in-depth description of educators' views of gifted learners' academic and behavioral abilities. Data collection was comprised of semi-structured interviews and classroom observations. Data were analyzed using manual coding. Thematic analysis was utilized to identify common responses from participants and followed Braun & Clarke's (2017) steps. Four themes emerged from the study: curriculum integration, environmental structure, social-emotional and behavioral, and academic behaviors. The study added to the existing body of knowledge on educators' descriptions and the support gifted learners need to increase their academic and positive behavioral abilities. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved)