Starting from an appreciation of history, this article considers aspects on developing cognitive excellence in the context of core tensions and themes surrounding gifted education that continue to be relevant to present scholarship and society. We discuss some of the knowns and unknowns regarding cognitive talent development in the context of…

The issue of high school dropout has long concerned policy makers, educational professionals, and the general public. In the gifted literature, this concern is no less pressing. Student engagement is becoming an increasingly discussed construct for conceptualizing the dropout phenomenon and designing appropriate interventions to prevent this…

A total of 47 gifted and nongifted African American and Euro-American elementary students were rated by their teachers on a multidimensional instrument developed to minimize language considerations and to rely on local norms (Universal Multiple Abilities Scales [UMAS; McCallum & Bracken, 2012a]). Results from two factorial MANOVAs revealed no…

This essay considers the intellectual engagement of rural people in the context of their schooling. It argues that rural schooling shares the miseducative purposes common to American schooling in general (i.e., purposes associated with sustaining American global economic dominion). It frames rurally appropriate education as an on-the-ground…

Many gifted women are unaware of or ambivalent about their potential, due to interpersonal obstacles, socio-cultural barriers, and intrapersonal factors. Guidelines and resources are offered for counseling gifted women to recognize and externalize cultural and familial devaluation and to envision new possibilities for personal fulfillment.…

Use of the term "acceleration" to describe interventions to enhance children's intellectual potential is inappropriate, as the term cannot by justified from the standpoint of mental measurement, mental growth, genetics, or education. Maximizing a child's potential through creation of stimulating environments is recommended rather than…

The identification of academically gifted children from the perspective of aptitude theory is discussed. Aptitude refers to the degree of readiness to learn and to perform well in a particular situation or domain. The primary aptitudes for academic success are (a) prior achievement in a domain, (b) the ability to reason in the symbol systems used…

This paper discusses selected issues and literature concerning gifted female students, examining achievement and aptitude, career choice, self-perceptions of ability, course taking, parental influences, the glamorization of sex differences, stereotyping, effects of classroom groupings and teaching strategies, and effects of single-sex schools and…

Parents are encouraged to take a child-centered approach to maximizing individual potential, which includes modeling the basic skills including how to learn, live, love, and communicate. Educators can help fully develop students' learning potential by matching their learning pace and the information content provided to their level of functioning.…