Skip to main content
NAGC25 Main banner
Evaluation

R&E Symposium

Fractured and Contested: Topics of Interest in Gifted Education

Saturday, November 15, 2025
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM ET
Location: Convention Center, 406
Grade Level: Pre-K-2, 3-5, 6-8, 9-12, Postsecondary, Professionals
Short Description: Gifted education struggles to identify common goals, priorities, and strategies due to underlying perspective differences. Recently, we explored interests of gifted education professionals using a Q-sort approach, finding three distinct foci: (a) optimizing equity in advanced academics, (b) supporting social-emotional needs of the gifted, and (c) practices for developing students’ talents and creativity. Implications for the field will be discussed.

Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the basic differences between “paradigms” in gifted education as articulated by Dai and Chen (Gifted Child, Differentiation, Talent Development).
  • Consider the patterns of topic interest found in a recent Q-study of NAGC presenters.
  • Consider the implications for both research and practice in a field with clear factions and divisions of beliefs.