Two implicit metaphors can be seen as having dominated the study of the gifted--the savings bank and the investment bank. In the savings-bank metaphor, people have differential levels of IQ or general intelligence, which is viewed as determining whether they are gifted. Their cognitive ability is their metaphorical "money in the bank."…

Methods to estimate the causal effects of interventions are increasingly used in clinical medicine, public policy and social science. Using observational data, researchers can obtain causal treatment effect estimates without the ethical risks and time constraints that typically burden randomized experiments. The three studies in this dissertation…

For more than 90 years, terminology related to giftedness in Brazil has evolved, proliferating terms used to describe gifted individuals. Terms such as "superdotado" (the common translation of "gifted" into Portuguese) may lead lay people to think of gifted students as only those with extremely high ability or extraordinary…

Open-ended verbal creativity assessments are commonly administered in psychological research and in educational practice to elementary-aged children. Children's responses are then typically rated by teams of judges who are trained to identify original ideas, hopefully with a degree of inter-rater agreement. Even in cases where the judges are…

The exploration of dissecting gifted and talented programs combined with student advancement and academic success is one daunting but doable. The purpose of this study was to investigate the equity of the gifted and talented program while analyzing the achievement scores of these students compared to their peers. This quantitative study includes…

In 1972, the United States Office of Education (USOE) released a lengthy and unprecedented report about gifted education in response to a Congressional mandate. Both Congress and the USOE lamented the inadequate state of gifted programmes in American schools and urged that gifted education should become a greater national priority. In this essay,…

Exceptionally talented refugee students are often underrepresented in allocating to gifted programs because of inadequate identification methods in Arab countries. This study investigates the Arabic version of the Having Opportunities Promotes Excellence (HOPE) Scale for identifying gifted refugee students. Students (n = 13,598) from refugee camp…

Despite the likely relevance of socio-cultural context, very few studies have examined the influence of cultural values on teachers' perceptions of gifted students' leadership development. This study chose three nations representing collectivistic to individualistic contexts and compared how 478 teachers from these countries (South Korea = 176,…

This study sought to determine if teacher perceptions play a role in the referral of culturally and linguistically diverse students to gifted-and-talented programming. There is a deficit of African American, Hispanic, English-language-learner, and low-income students in the gifted-and-talented program at a fifth- and sixth-grade campus in a…

This special issue presents a sample of modern work on self-regulated learning (SRL) among high ability and gifted students. It includes diverse views about the construct per se, and gifted students' and their teachers' accounts about SRL and factors they believe moderate it. Zeidner and Stroeger (this issue) set the stage with a sketch of an…

Giftedness has long been recognised as a cultural construct. Further, the processes and practices for developing talents are culturally influenced. Yet, there is little existing research into Australian Aboriginal understandings of giftedness and talent. There is a need to move beyond pan-Aboriginality when considering Australian Aboriginal views,…

Although the commonly accepted view is that there are such things as natural talents, more than 20 years of research suggests the opposite. What passes for talented is attributable to a combination of social and environmental factors. If the current research on this topic holds true, then there are implications not only for various theories of…

The field of giftedness--including educators, theorists, and researchers--needs to show more cognizance of a phenomenon that is rearing its ugly head in more and more visible ways, namely, dark giftedness. Dark giftedness is giftedness used for bad and even toxic ends. Being gifted provides little, if any protection against the dark deployment of…

In order to supply a future Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce, Australia needs to engage its most capable and gifted secondary students in quality STEM learning, either within school or through extra-curricular opportunities, so that they will continue into STEM-based tertiary degrees. High-achieving students in…

The University of Minnesota Talented Youth Mathematics Program (UMTYMP) is a selective, five-year accelerated mathematics program for students in grades 6-12. During the program, students take college mathematics courses on University of Minnesota campuses, starting with algebra and continuing through logic and proofs, linear algebra, and…