Permission to be gifted

Permission to be gifted:

how conceptions of giftedness can change lives

By Joan Freeman [Part 2 - also see Part 1]

School of Lifelong Learning and Education, Middlesex University, London, UK

Ref: Freeman, J. (2005), ‘Permission to be gifted: how conceptions of giftedness can change lives’, in R. Sternberg & J. Davidson, Conceptions of Giftedness, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (pp 80-97)

2) Gender affects gifted development

Internationally, concepts of gender provide a clear and relatively easy measure example of socio-educational permission to be gifted.

Most obviously, gender achievements in countries where girls are not allowed any education beyond puberty, if at all, will grossly exaggerate the apparent differences in native ability between the sexes.

Heller & Ziegler (1996), in an international review of research on gender differences in mathematics and natural sciences, failed to find any reliable evidence that girls are inherently less able than boys.

Consequently, they suggested that girls and boys can act as experimental controls for each other to gauge the power of social effects, eventually best seen in career outcomes.

They pointed out, for example, that even on present tests of spatial abilities at which boys do better, one would expect only twice as many male engineering graduates as females, whereas there are 30 times as many.

In the USA, Wilson, Stocking, and Goldstein (1994) reported that female and male adolescents generally selected courses that followed traditional gender stereotypes, males generally preferring mathematics and science.

Comparing gifted gender achievements, even between the cousinly relationship of the USA and Britain, highlights some highly statistically significant differences between which gender may be permitted to be as gifted and in what subject areas (Freeman, 2003).

In Britain, the academic achievements of gifted girls at school are now surpassing those of gifted boys in virtually all areas of study and at all school ages, including mathematics and the hard sciences, though excluding physical education (Arnot, Gray & Rudduck, 1998; DES, 2000).

This phenomenon, the reversal of conventional notions of gender achievement, is also growing in other parts of Europe and Australia, though not in Germany or Italy.

The reasons for the British changes are probably two-fold:

• greater female confidence in their abilities, i.e. changing concepts of who may be seen as gifted in what subject areas

• changes in the style and content of school curriculum and assessment methods, i.e. fewer short-term memory examinations, such as multiple choice, and greater reliance on long-term dedicated project-based work.

In the USA, though, the gifted gender picture is quite different. For example, in mathematics, science and vocational (male type) aptitude scales, “talented” 17 year-old boys scored 8-10 times more frequently within the top 10 per cent (Hedges & Nowell, 1995).

For several tests, no female managed to score at all in the top three per cent. However, the researchers found the talented boys to be at a profound disadvantage in literacy skills, by as much as a year and a half.

They concluded that there are innate unalterable gender differences. Other American work, notably by Benbow and her team, (e.g. Lubinski, Benbow & Morelock, 2000), found the same “robust gender differences” in mathematical reasoning ability in favour of boys, which they have found to be longitudinally stable.

Winner (1996) writes that when girls start school in the USA, they are identified in the same proportions as boys for gifted programmes, but as they get older, there is a striking fall in the proportion of girls.

Although girls make up half the gifted population in kindergarten, this proportion, she writes, shrinks to less than 30% at junior high school and even lower at high school.

Thus, it seems that in the USA, conceptions of giftedness and gender are more specifically associated with subject areas than in Britain. These concepts of who may be gifted, and in what areas, patently affect the individual careers of men and women, and their achievements and earning power across the life-span.

3) Expected emotional development affects the choice of children as gifted

Around the world, lists of the supposed characteristics of gifted children are given to teachers to help them in selection for special educational provision. As these lists are based on local conceptions the characteristics vary widely.

Many are concerned with the presentation of the child’s self, such as manners, articulacy and appearance.

They can be entirely negative, as in this complete list (Northamptonshire County Council, UK, 1994, p 15).

“Prefers friendship with older pupils or adults.

Excessively self-critical.

Unable to make good relations with peer groups and teachers.

Emotionally unstable.

Low self-esteem, withdrawn and sometimes aggressive.”

Indeed, this negativity is widespread. Plucker & Levy (2001) describe the life of the gifted and talented in the USA as beset with emotional problems, such as “depression and feelings of isolation” and they suggest that the appearance of contentment is false, recommending preventative therapy.

American gifted girls especially, have been found to be more depressed than equally able boys, often underestimating their abilities because of conflicts between of success and 'femininity' (Luthar, Zigler, & Goldstein, 1992).

Yet at least as much evidence provides the entirely opposite picture; the gifted being at least as emotionally well balanced as any others.

For example, a recent study of over 220 gifted and non-gifted American children in their first year of high-school concluded that the gifted saw themselves as being more intimate with friends, took more sports-related and danger-related risks, and felt that they were at least as good in social-skills as their non-gifted peers: their teachers agreed (Field, Harding, Yando, Gonzalez, Lasko, Bendell and Marks, 1998).

Freeman’s 30-year study in Britain found that it was the labelled gifted who had more emotional problems than the identically able but unlabelled gifted (Freeman, 2001, and see below).

It seems as though emotional development as part of the concept of giftedness, rather depends on the cultural stereotype and the research methodology.

And if emotional development forms part of the conceptual guide for selection, there will be wide variation in who is seen as gifted along the spectrum of what is seen as emotionally normal to emotionally disturbed.

American work has shown that teachers trained to see through the myths are better at finding the gifted (Hansen and Feldhusen, 1994). And fortunately, many teachers can be very perceptive, spotting and nurturing talent which others or tests may miss.

Such intuitive, inspiring teachers are lauded in creative literature, if not recognised in statistical tables.

International differences in conceptions of giftedness

Although it is Sweden which hosts the Nobel Prize for world-class excellence, gifted children at school are barely recognised either there or in any of the other Scandinavian countries.

But then, the standard of basic education in those countries is extremely high in world terms, such that not only do Scandinavian youngsters usually come around the top in international surveys, but in proportion to their size the countries produce as many world-class creatively gifted adults as anywhere.

Yet across their Northern borders, Russian culture is associated with a passion for the promotion of talent and national pride in its high-achievers (Persson, Joswig & Balogh, 2000).

Indeed, long before the Communist Revolution in 1917, gifted and talented children from all over the country were sent to Moscow and Saint Petersburg to high-level specialist schools, rich in tradition, in fields such as painting, ballet and music.

In the USA, millions of dollars from educational authorities and parents support a multitude of gifted programs for children, and although there is no proportional shortage of world-beaters there either, it is far from sure how much of their success is due to any of those programs.

But where giftedness is recognised, there is a major split in its conception between Eastern and Western philosophy (Stevenson, 1998; Freeman, 2002b). The balance is between the relative effects of genetics and environment, and according concern and practical provision made for individuals according to those concepts.

Understanding the two major approaches at either end of the spectrum throws a fresh light on what is normally regarded in the Western World as universal understanding about gifts.

The two ends of the spectrum of approaches to giftedness can be summarised roughly as follows:

• In the Far East, environmental influences are generally accepted as dominant. Every baby is seen as being born with similar potential; the main difference in children is in rate of development - which to a large extent is in the power of each individual to fulfil through hard work. However, some Far Eastern countries practice the Western idea of selecting children by high measured ability for special education (e.g. Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong).

• In the Western World, genetic influences are generally seen as dominant. Consequently, Western World children are assessed and tested to discover their aptitudes – the vast majority being seen as incapable of high-level learning and achievement, other than in egalitarian countries like Scandinavia or less interested ones like Italy.

[Part 1 of 4] Continued in Part 3

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