Gifted Education International

Gifted education should focus on gifting rather than on being gifted. That is, it should focus on what one offers from one’s gifts, not just on what gifts a person has, one way or another, accumulated. Gifted individuals should consider choosing careers that are a good fit to them, that enable them to give back, and that give them a sense of meaning in their life. They should be ready to move on if their career choice proves to be mistaken, or no longer to be a fit. They should avoid temptations brought on by outside pressures to choose careers that may be much less than fulfilling. In the end, what matters most is one’s passion and motivation for a career rather than grades, test scores, or external pressures.

Giftedness is a lifelong journey; gifted adult workers need specific career counselling. The Psychology of Sustainability and Sustainable Development enhances the value of positive psychological resources for gifted and talented workers to sustain them in their careers and life projects. The study implemented a latent profile analysis (LPA) in adult workers (n = 311) to identify profiles according to self-rated job performance and work engagement as proxies for gifted and talented learners. Other crucial resources were also considered. A tree-profile (A, B, C) solution best fits the data. Among these, Profile C (n = 77; 24%) showed high job performance and engagement. It could represent an “eminence” profile. Profile C also showed high levels of emotional intelligence, positive affect, satisfaction with life, meaning in life, flourishing, job satisfaction, meaning at work, flourishing at work, workplace relational civility, acceptance of change, and low levels of negative affect. This profile includes crucial ingredients that could be useful to pay attention to during career construction counselling and innovative career counselling for gifted and talented learners.

Building on prior research documenting associations between youth purpose and academic, psychological and physical well-being, this study examined the contributions of workplace learning (WPL) to youth purpose and internal motivation among 281 youth of diverse racial and ethnic identities and economic status enrolled in two high school networks offering innovatively designed WPL. Sequential regression analyses revealed that the quality of WPL, defined by mentor support for training, learning opportunities, and youth autonomy, contributed positively to youth purpose and internal motivation, beyond the negative effects of perceived social and economic barriers. Findings are discussed through the perspectives of psychology of working, decent education, self-determination theory and career construction and suggest that WPL is a promising intervention for overcoming inequities in fostering youth talent and purpose, including personal goals, meaning and intentions for social contribution.

Gifted and talented youth in the US have been struggling for recognition and appropriate educational opportunities for decades. Periodically, we are reminded of their unique needs. Time and again, those needs seem to be disregarded, including their need for career related planning and programming. Narratives of gifted students can be negatively impacted, as a result of action or inaction by young people themselves or of others in their lives. Three distinct problem saturated plots can emerge requiring career counselors to provide specific intervention to ensure narrative development in congruence with the hopes, dreams and desires of youth. Career construction theory, with its emphasis on authorship and agency is most suitable for increasing agency of the youth stuck in these narratives. My Career Story a group or individual intervention, rooted in career construction theory, offers assistance to both students and counselors, as students work to develop their own preferred narratives.

This study explored factors impacting the decision for gifted females to pursue a career in computer science. The study used a phenomenological approach to delve into the experiences of ten gifted alumnae of The Gatton Academy of Mathematics and Science (Gatton), a residential STEM program, aiming to reveal nuanced insights into factors shaping their career development. Participants were selected based on their initial intentions to pursue careers other than CS before attending Gatton but changing to a CS focus afterward. Semi-structured interviews conducted via Zoom and coded using thematic analysis provided rich data on lived experiences and perspectives of participants. Findings shed light on the multifaceted factors influencing gifted women’s career intentions before attending Gatton, the transformative effects of the residential STEM program on their decisions to pursue CS careers, and the evolution of their perceptions of CS over time.

This article proposes that researchers should seek to understand the value conflicts inherent in the career choices of gifted students. This study explored those conflicts using a narrative analysis based on the McAdams (1993) model of personal meaning-making. The subjects were two gifted female political leaders: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf and Jacinda Ardern. The findings showed that each leader enacted predominantly agentic motives in responding to political challenges and crises; communal motives were enacted as well, but with lower frequency. These results are discussed in relation to the conflicting values and motivations that extraordinarily talented students encounter in forming a cohesive life plan.

The career choices of gifted students are significant both in terms of their potential contributions to society and their personal happiness and life satisfaction. The aim of this study was to identify themes of the turning points that influence gifted young people’s career decisions and to reveal which factors influence their vocational identity from a Narrative Identity Approach. Data were collected using open-ended questions from 17 (52.94% female, n = 9) gifted young people (age; M = 20.47, SD = 3.69). Data were analysed with reflexive thematic analysis, which identified five major themes (1) individual factors, (2) social factors, (3) giftedness, (4) career goals, and (5) exploration opportunities. Considering the first retrospective study examining gifted students’ vocational identity, career guidance might benefit from tailored interventions that account for their unique characteristics, goals, personal and social factors as well as maximizing exploration opportunities.

In examining dominant discourses affecting their career development, this article explores the deconstruction and reconstruction of career narratives for gifted learners. Leveraging career construction theory and especially the associated intervention of deconstruction, this article emphasizes childhood career development with holistic approaches to develop gifted individuals’ narratives, and proposes practices to enhance their career adaptability. Furthermore, this article calls for reconceptualizing career success for gifted individuals to facilitate their ability to construct authentic and fulfilling career paths.

This article reports on how intervention research based on integrative career counselling enhanced the existential experience of a gifted learner. The participant of this study was a purposively selected gifted 17-year-old girl learner in search of a career that would help her experience meaning, purpose, and hope in and through her career-life. An explanatory (QUALITATIVE-quantitative) research design was used together with qualitative career construction counselling-based methods. A new standardised test was used to generate quantitative data. Savickas’ guidelines for analysing career construction-elicited data were implemented to identify themes and subthemes in the outcomes. The intervention helped the participant decide on a career through which she could experience meaning, purpose, and hope in her career-life. Longitudinal research is needed to determine the medium- and long-term influence of the type of intervention discussed here with gifted learners in individual as well as group contexts across the diversity spectrum.