Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- 1 Gifted Education Without Gifted Children: The Case for No Conception of Giftedness
- 2 Youths Who Reason Exceptionally Well Mathematically and/or Verbally: Using the MVT:D4 Model to Develop Their Talents
- 3 A Child-Responsive Model of Giftedness
- 4 School-Based Conception of Giftedness
- 5 Giftedness, Talent, Expertise, and Creative Achievement
- 6 Permission to Be Gifted: How Conceptions of Giftedness Can Change Lives
- 7 From Gifts to Talents: The DMGT as a Developmental Model
- 8 Nurturing Talent in Gifted Students of Color
- 9 The Munich Model of Giftedness Designed to Identify and Promote Gifted Students
- 10 Systemic Approaches to Giftedness: Contributions of Russian Psychology
- 11 Giftedness and Gifted Education
- 12 The Importance of Contexts in Theories of Giftedness: Learning to Embrace the Messy Joys of Subjectivity
- 13 Feminist Perspectives on Talent Development: A Research-Based Conception of Giftedness in Women
- 14 The Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness: A Developmental Model for Promoting Creative Productivity
- 15 In Defense of a Psychometric Approach to the Definition of Academic Giftedness: A Conservative View from a Die-Hard Liberal
- 16 Creative Giftedness
- 17 Genetics of Giftedness: The Implications of an Emergenic–Epigenetic Model
- 18 The WICS Model of Giftedness
- 19 Beyond Expertise: Conceptions of Giftedness as Great Performance
- 20 Domain-Specific Giftedness: Applications in School and Life
- 21 Extreme Giftedness
- 22 Making Giftedness Productive
- 23 The Actiotope Model of Giftedness
- 24 The Scientific Study of Giftedness
- Author Index
- Subject Index
1 - Gifted Education Without Gifted Children: The Case for No Conception of Giftedness
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- List of Contributors
- 1 Gifted Education Without Gifted Children: The Case for No Conception of Giftedness
- 2 Youths Who Reason Exceptionally Well Mathematically and/or Verbally: Using the MVT:D4 Model to Develop Their Talents
- 3 A Child-Responsive Model of Giftedness
- 4 School-Based Conception of Giftedness
- 5 Giftedness, Talent, Expertise, and Creative Achievement
- 6 Permission to Be Gifted: How Conceptions of Giftedness Can Change Lives
- 7 From Gifts to Talents: The DMGT as a Developmental Model
- 8 Nurturing Talent in Gifted Students of Color
- 9 The Munich Model of Giftedness Designed to Identify and Promote Gifted Students
- 10 Systemic Approaches to Giftedness: Contributions of Russian Psychology
- 11 Giftedness and Gifted Education
- 12 The Importance of Contexts in Theories of Giftedness: Learning to Embrace the Messy Joys of Subjectivity
- 13 Feminist Perspectives on Talent Development: A Research-Based Conception of Giftedness in Women
- 14 The Three-Ring Conception of Giftedness: A Developmental Model for Promoting Creative Productivity
- 15 In Defense of a Psychometric Approach to the Definition of Academic Giftedness: A Conservative View from a Die-Hard Liberal
- 16 Creative Giftedness
- 17 Genetics of Giftedness: The Implications of an Emergenic–Epigenetic Model
- 18 The WICS Model of Giftedness
- 19 Beyond Expertise: Conceptions of Giftedness as Great Performance
- 20 Domain-Specific Giftedness: Applications in School and Life
- 21 Extreme Giftedness
- 22 Making Giftedness Productive
- 23 The Actiotope Model of Giftedness
- 24 The Scientific Study of Giftedness
- Author Index
- Subject Index
Summary
I am quite confident that the conception of giftedness set forth in this chapter differs significantly from those found in the other chapters of this book in that the conception I advance is no conception at all. By that, I do not mean that I have chosen not to advance a conception of giftedness. Rather, I am actively advancing the idea of no conception of giftedness as a positive development for the field of gifted education.
To be clear about what I am advocating, let me state my position unequivocally. I believe that the concept of the gifted child is logically, pragmatically, and – with respect to the consequences of its application in American education – morally untenable and that the aims of the field of gifted education would have a greater likelihood of being realized if we were to dispense with it altogether.
Because I realize that this is a radical position for a contributor to this book to take, I want to clarify my motivation and my positionality before advancing my argument. I write as one who considers himself to be a scholar in and of the field of gifted education. I have taught in programs for gifted students, and my doctorate is in this field. I believe that there are individual differences in elementary and secondary students' school performance that probably derive from a complex of ability and motivational, social, cultural, sociopolitical, and other factors and that these have important educational implications.
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- Conceptions of Giftedness , pp. 1 - 19Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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