Some students with gifts and talents (SWGT) are among the thousands of youths who die by suicide every year, although there is no way to know how many. Research indicates they are not more likely to engage in suicidal behaviors than other students. They do have unique risk and protective factors, however. Risk factors can accumulate to outweigh…

In the article "Towards a systemic theory of gifted education", A. Ziegler and S. N. Phillipson present an interesting approach to gifted education. The actiotope model explains giftedness in light of systems theory where constant interchange occurs between the gifted person, his/her actions, and the environment in which he or she evolves. The…

In their target paper, "Towards a systemic theory of gifted education," A. Ziegler and S. N. Phillipson present a long awaited call for a paradigmatic shift in thinking within the field of gifted education. The paper considers how educators and researchers within the field could bring about such a change. They challenge the prevailing…

In their introduction to the idea of a systems approach to understanding talent and giftedness, Ziegler and Phillipson broach the larger issue of the positivistic or mechanistic mindset to knowing and understanding that pervades much of what is called educational research. This worthy tactic brings to light the need to move away from the status…

In "Towards a systemic theory of gifted education", Ziegler and Phillipson offer a useful critique of current research and the current paradigm in gifted education. They provide an interesting and useful merging of systems theory with their actiotope model, and using this paradigm they suggest many fruitful areas for future research. However, the…

Eight years ago, the authors carried out a study on scientific creativity. Thirty-four eminent scientists, who had gained great creative scientific achievements in five fields--mathematics, physics, chemistry, geography and life science--were chosen and interviewed. In the study, the authors tried to find out what made a person demonstrate…

Without a doubt the authors' proposal of viewing gifted education in systemic terms is a promising one. In fact, it is most refreshing to read something eclectic like this with an aim to synthesize a field of research and practice which for too long has lacked consensus in both practice and theory. The author agrees with them that a mechanistic…

This article argues that research and educational practices relating to gifted students can highly benefit by linking up more closely with the mainstream of research on learning and instruction. The CLIA-model for the design of powerful learning environments that consists of four interconnected components (Competence, Learning, Intervention, and…

Ziegler and Phillipson make a strong case for the need to reconsider traditional models of gifted education. Although their evidence and argument are compelling, the reviewers argue that several additional steps are needed to justify the theoretical foundation of the theory in order to facilitate its evaluation by researchers. First, Ziegler and…

In March 1978, under the suggestion of Chinese-born Nobel Prize laureate Tsung-Dao Lee, China launched its first gifted education program at the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). Based on nominations and interviews, 21 gifted students aged 11-16 were enrolled in USTC and comprised a special class. Five years later, the early…

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…

This paper deals with the main aspects of the work carried out by the Center for Talented Youth Spain since its founding. The educational model applied here is based on the "Study of mathematically precocious youth", developed by Julian Stanley in the early seventies and currently the inspiration behind all the centers belonging to…

Giftedness models published in the last two decades are mostly characterized by multi-dimensional or typological ability constructs. Prominent examples of multifactorial models of giftedness have been developed by Robert Sternberg in the form of the "Triarchic Theory of Intelligence" and his recent synthetic approaches to "Giftedness as Developing…

This report is an evaluation of an attributional retraining intervention conceptualized to promote girls gifted in the natural sciences. The attributional retraining was based on a modeling technique, and conceptualized for ninth-grade chemistry students attending a college preparatory high school (German Gymnasium). The aim of the training was to…

The purpose of this study was to identify common and domain-specific cognitive characteristics of gifted students based on an integrated model of human abilities. This study is based on the premise that abilities identified by tests can appear as observable characteristics in test or school situations. Abilities proposed by major models of…