Chapter 9: Gifted and Talented Education
Niamh Stack & Margaret Sutherland
Gifted and talented education International and national concepts of giftedness The importance of cultural understandings on both education and giftedness How each of the above impacts on the educational opportunities offered to gifted pupils Possible ways of ensuring curriculum challenge for all The premise of this book was established in Chapter 1 : ‘social justice has to be grounded in a vision of providing access to good learning’. Given this beginning you may be surprised at the inclusion of a chapter on gifted and talented pupils as this is a cohort commonly associated with assumptions of privilege and elitism rather than discussions of social justice. A key aim of this chapter is to challenge these assumptions and to demonstrate that social justice is best achieved when pedagogies are permeated with opportunities for children to demonstrate their abilities. Learning which does not provide the required level of challenge is not ‘good ...