Various factors influence the development of creative potential, including everything from individual differences to the kinds of experiences and opportunities that creators experience throughout the lifespan. When it comes to nurturing creativity in the classroom, the learning environment is one of the most important factors--determining, in…

Although universities aim to challenge high-ability students to develop their talents to the full, the question of how to create such challenges remains unanswered. In this study, we examined six different honors courses to discover which factors in the learning environment specifically designed for high-ability students challenged these students…

Ziegler and Phillipson (Z&P) have provided a valuable discussion of the identification and development of giftedness under a systemic umbrella, including issues of differing theoretical approaches and efficacy. This commentary considers their discussion within a novel systemic framework that links also individuals and environment, but in terms of…

A systemic theory of gifted education, and in particular the notion of the actiotope receives surprising support from an epistemology until recently largely unrecognized and undervalued--that of Australian Aborigines. As part of an ongoing transdisciplinary collaborative research practice, a group Yolngu (north east Arnhem Land Aboriginal) elders…

Ziegler and Phillipson provide a timely, thought-provoking critique of traditional approaches to gifted education. For a long time, the field has searched in vain for the Holy Grail of giftedness. Alas, the essentialist assumption fails because giftedness does not have a single essence that holds its identity, unity, and continuity. Reification of…

Ziegler and Phillipson (Z&P) advance an interesting and ambitious proposal, whereby current analytical/mechanistic theories of gifted education are replaced by systemic theories. In this commentary, the author focuses on the pros and cons of using systemic theories. He argues that Z&P's proposal both goes too far and not far enough. The future of…

Current gifted education clearly has its problems as outlined by Ziegler and Phillipson. The focus on personal traits and the assumption of an autocatalytic development of gifts into extraordinary achievement has not been proved a valid approach for designing effective supportive measures. At least one of the reasons proposed by Ziegler and…

In their commentary, from the very start, the authors welcome the opportunity to face the inefficacy of the currently existing educational paradigm gifted people. For many years, they have verified and supported the difficulties of a paradigm whose philosophy and anthropological foundation are incapable of guaranteeing the promotion and…

The commentaries to our target article "Towards a systemic theory of gifted education" differed in their assessments of the various arguments we put forward. Of the more than 40 responses to our target article, 27 responses were chosen as being representative of all commentaries. We grouped the responses according to the main points in our target…

The aim of this paper is to investigate implicit theories of educational researchers on creativity and the potential to support creativity in schools. We used qualitative thematic analysis of material produced by 27 educational experts from Serbia. Personal explicit theories about manifestations of creativity are mainly based on qualities and…

Mentoring is considered among the most effective pedagogical measures, yet it is rarely used in gifted education. One of the main reasons for this neglect seems to be the lack of a thorough analysis of its conceptual foundations from the point of view of giftedness research. This contribution starts with a discussion of conceptual and definitional…

Character education is both an age-old and growing discipline, which attempts to restructure schools to optimally foster the development of the ethical and pro-social motivations and competencies of students. The key components of evidence-based quality character education are presented. Then the relevant characteristics of gifted students are…

Is there an ethical giftedness, and if so, what does it look like? In this article, I consider why ethical behavior is much harder to come by than one would expect. Ethically gifted individuals are able to complete a series of eight steps to action, the failure of any one of which may result in a person, even one who is ethically well trained, to…

In an exploratory study designed to investigate Shona culture of Zimbabwe's views of giftedness, data were collected from sixteen Zimbabwean academics of Shona cultural background. Using questionnaire narratives, the study established that Shona culture views giftedness as an unusual ability blessed in an individual through ancestry which enables…