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
12 - The Importance of Contexts in Theories of Giftedness: Learning to Embrace the Messy Joys of Subjectivity
- 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
At a recent conference, a clinical psychologist who works with gifted students engaged the first author in an exciting and challenging conversation. As we discussed specific research and case studies involving gifted children, we realized that we were talking almost exclusively about the importance of context in defining and addressing giftedness. During the rest of the conference, we noticed the role of context in talent development in every session we attended. On the first author's return home, one question kept leaping into his mind: If the need to consider context comes up in most research sessions and so many practical applications, why don't we spend more time exploring its role in theories of giftedness? In this chapter, we explore the role of context in some classic and contemporary theories and models of giftedness, propose an alternative view, and explore the practical implications of that perspective.
HOW SHOULD WE CONCEPTUALIZE GIFTEDNESS AND TALENT?
Defining terms is very important in conceptual discussions such as those included in this volume. The need for precise definitions is especially critical when dealing with constructs such as creativity, intelligence, and talent, given the wide range of commonly used definitions for these terms. The discussion in this chapter relies on a definition drawn from the following conceptualization of creativity:
Creativity is the interaction among aptitude, process, and environment by which an individual or group produces a perceptible product that is both novel and useful as defined within a social context.
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- Information
- Conceptions of Giftedness , pp. 201 - 216Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2005
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