Developing Talent in Science: Breaking the Gifted Education Taboo

ongoing

The proposed project ‘Developing talent in science: Breaking the gifted education taboo’ seeks to gain new insight of how to address gifted students’ needs in inclusive education (IE) systems. IE systems, described as ’one school for all’ aim to ensure education is accessible for all students, however in reality have focused on the needs of average or lower-achieving students. Gifted education (GE) has been considered elitist, even taboo, and thus the needs of gifted students have been largely neglected in IE policies and schools’ pedagogical strategies. However, individuals gifted in science are key persons to develop responses to societal challenges and to increase innovation and economic competitiveness – if the education system allows them to develop their potential into actual competencies. Neglecting gifted students’ needs may also lead to negative consequences such as underachievement, bullying, and depression. The project will include the perspectives of gifted and regular students, parents and science teachers, and compare the results from Sweden and Finland using mixed methods. It will examine how gifted students’ socioemotional and learning-related needs are supported in inclusive science classrooms and what are gifted students’ and their parents’ lived experiences of specific GE strategies, such as acceleration and grouping – two potentially very effective but understudied and underused strategies in inclusive GE. The project will also examine how science teachers support gifted students’ learning with regard to competence development teachers have had or wish to have, and it seeks to find and showcase the best practices in inclusive GE. The project will produce highly relevant scientific knowledge from the IE context and improve teacher education; strong research-based teacher education manifests in higher science competencies among all students. The impact will extend beyond the Nordic context, as IE has recently generated significant global interest.