Behind the Gifted News: Minority Representation in Gifted Education

I have introduced into this Blog a new series of shorter articles prompted by recent news articles  about G&T education.

The first, about the ‘One Voice’ initiative to create an umbrella group for G&T interests in England, was prompted by a recent article in the Times Educational Supplement and can be found here.

The second article is on ethnic minority representation in gifted populations, prompted by a recent speech by the US Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. You can find it here.

 

GP

October 2010

Navigating this Blog and a Reprise for New Readers

Welcome, dear readers to this the second incarnation of the Gifted Phoenix Blog.

I have moved, lock, stock and barrel from blog.com because the service seemed to be becoming increasingly unreliable.

I hope you like my new theme and layout: I’ve tried to ensure that reading my (unapologetically long and sometimes demanding) posts is as straightforward as possible.

I thought it would be helpful to new readers to say a little about the pages and posts I have published over the past four months, to help them to understand the broad purpose of this Blog and, if they wish, to more easily locate pieces that they would like to read and comment on.

Pages

I have written several items about worldwide and trans-continental gifted and talented education organisations.  These pages were formerly accessible from the index on the header of the Blog but the links seem to not to show up in this theme.

So I have decided to use those pages as repositories for annotated lists of hyperlinks, so that readers who wish to can navigate easily to the home sites of key international, national and state G&T organisations. I will start compiling these lists in the next few days and will do my best to keep them up-to-date, as I know from experience just how frustrating broken links can be!

You may also notice a new page in this set called ‘Behind the Gifted News’ which I intend to use for short topical posts stimulated by  news items on G&T education around the world. The first item is about the ‘One Voice’ initiative in England, which featured in the Times Educational Supplement of 1 October 2010.

The easiest way to access the material on the other pages is via the contents section at the bottom of the left-hand column. Or you can use the hyperlinks below.

To date, I have published pieces on:

• the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children

• the International Research Association for Talent Development and Excellence (IRATDE)

• the Arab Council for Gifted and Talented (ACGT)

• the Ibero-American Federation of the World Council

• the Asia-Pacific Federation of the World Council

• Pan-Asian Programmes in Science-based Gifted Education

• The European Council for High Ability (ECHA) and

• European Agency for Development in Special Needs Education

Posts

The blogposts themselves can be reached through the tag cloud or the archive,the latter sorted by month of publication, both of which can be found in the right-hand column.

The pieces I have posted to date are listed below in order of publication:

• What are the key issues in global gifted and talented education,  a simple model to support the analysis of similarities and differences in policy and provision worldwide – and also a baseline to be revisited from time to time, to see whether it still holds true.

• An international quality standard for gifted and talented education, a proposal for the development of an agreed standard for national and state level support for G&T, modeled on the quality standards we developed for domestic use in England.

• An international federation of G&T parents’ organisations – a proposal for the same, as a way of strengthening international advocacy.

• Hungary’s plans to strengthen G&T education across the EU, summarising Hungary’s intentions during its Presidency of the EU in the first half of 2011.

• The economics of gifted education, bemoaning the dearth of studies in this field – and why they could be vital to the survival of gifted education in a time of recession.

• The economics of gifted education: smart fraction theory, tracing the development of the theory and highlighting its potential significance as part of the economic justification for gifted education.

• Gifted and talented education in Africa part 1, taking a critical look at the World Council’s involvement with a questionable organisation calling itself the African Council for the Gifted and Talented.

• Gifted and talented education in Africa part 2, examining the work of IGGY in Africa and the progress of the African Gifted Foundation.

• Building a federation of UK G&T interests – learning from New Zealand, a piece about the early development of the ‘one voice’ initiative in England (rather than the UK, as it turns out) giving my perspective on what we can (and cannot) learn from the establishment of giftEDnz, a professional umbrella organisation.

• The transatlantic excellence gap: a comparative study of England and the USA, outlining work on the excellence gap in the USA and considering the chances of it being addressed at federal level.

• The transatlantic excellence gap: part 2 – England, examining evidence of an excellence gap in England and considering the chances of it being addressed by the Coalition Government.

• The transatlantic excellence gap: part 3 – social mobility through fair access to higher education, examining the prospects for gifted education in England of current attention on social mobility and fair access to competitive universities for those from disadvantaged backgrounds.

• On the composition of gifted and talented populations which seeks to draw a global lesson from the analysis of the G&T data collected through the January 2010 school census.

• Celebrating the PENTA UC programme in Chile, which describes the outstanding extended enrichment programme provided by one university in Santiago, Chile, holding it up as a model for others to emulate.

• On ability grouping and gifted education: part 1, taking an honest look at tracking and setting in a policy-making context encouraging gifted education advocates to take full account of the research evidence, not just a partial view and

• On ability grouping and gifted education – part 2, which looks more deeply into the research on tracking, setting and mixed ability grouping, considers the benefits of a hybrid model and encourages innovation.

Sixteen posts altogether –  which I hope have made some small contribution to our global understanding of what constitutes effective policy in gifted and talented education.

Blogroll, Google and Twitter

I have included a blogroll in the right-hand column. I would like to link to all live blogs on gifted education, not just those in English, so if you have a recommendation for a blog to include, please don’t hesitate to let me know in a comment.

You will also find in the right-hand column a feed to a Google Alert on ‘Gifted Education’ so you can see what stories are currently live on this issue.

And I have included the Gifted Phoenix Twitter feed in the left-hand column, so you can keep in touch with my attempts at 140-character social networking on gifted education and related subjects!

Finally…

I’ve really enjoyed the privilege of sharing my ideas with you over these past four months and I hope that I can continue to stimulate your thinking in the months and years ahead.

I would really welcome more comments on these posts, whether you agree or disagree with them. A monologue has some value but dialogue typically results in a better learning experience – on both sides!

And do please contact me if you have suggestions for how I can improve the quality and content of this blog, so that it better meets your needs.

GP

October 2010

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