Confronting Dogmatism in Gifted Education

Concepts and definitions in the field of gifted education have been unsettled and contested for many years, and interest in clarifying notions of high ability has been growing. While discussions and arguments are ongoing, most of them don'¬"t go deep enough or range broadly enough to reveal the dogmatism that limits the perspectives of professionals, policymakers, and other stakeholders in gifted education. This book looks beyond the predominant conceptual frameworks that dominate thinking about giftedness and talent. Leading thinkers in the field of gifted education question fundamental assumptions about high ability and probe the larger contexts that influence gifted education. The first section of the book includes explorations of big-picture issues pertaining to fundamental assumptions about giftedness and talent. The second section addresses ways in which economic and academic contexts in today'¬"s globalized world can affect otherwise gifted minds. Section three explores the effects of these contextual influences on curriculum and instruction in the education of the highly able. Finally, a synthesis chapter analyzes patterns in the other contributions and makes recommendations for refinement of gifted education.

Don Ambrose is Professor of Graduate Education at Rider University, editor of the Roeper Review, and past chair of the Conceptual Foundations Division of the National Association for Gifted Children. He serves on the editorial boards of most of the major journals in the field of gifted education, and for several book series. His numerous interdisciplinary publications address the conceptual frameworks for creative intelligence. Robert J. Sternberg is Provost and Senior Vice President of Oklahoma State University, past Dean of the School of Arts and Sciences and Professor of Psychology at Tufts University, and past Director of Graduate Studies at Yale University. He is also Honorary Professor of Psychology at the University of Heidelberg, Germany. He is a former president of the American Psychological Association and the Eastern Psychological Association. He has won the E. Paul Torrance and Distinguished Scholar Awards from the National Association for Gifted Children. His 1,000+ publications include over 70 books. Bharath Sriraman is Professor of Mathematics in the Department of Mathematical Sciences and is also on the Faculty and Advisory Board of Central/SW Asian Studies at The University of Montana, where he occasionally offers courses on Indo-Iranian and Turkic studies and languages. He has published over 240 journal articles, commentaries, book chapters, edited books, and reviews in his areas of interest, and presented over 110 papers at international conferences, symposia, and invited colloquia.