Gifted Education Policy and Identification Within A Global Comparative Context
WCGTC Conference – Vancouver – August 2009
ABSTRACT
Cultural variance exists in the construct of giftedness, and affects a country's implementation of formal identification and policy development in gifted education. Analysis of program descriptions has supported the influence of factors including culture, demography, religion, and economics in the level of a country's participation in gifted education. Cultural dynamics are compared across continents and countries of the world as they relate to the provisions formalized to identify and address the advanced needs of students. Aspects of global policy distinctions are manifest in reference to preference for use of terms gifted, talented, high ability, or advanced. Emerging factors identified have led to development of a web-based data analysis system to compare gifted education policy worldwide. A theoretical framework is also proposed to accommodate cultural variances in identification.