Exploring Giftedness and the Gifted Learner in Education and Beyond:An Autoethnographic Study with Critical Friends

Abstract

The concept of giftedness is complex, contested and evolving and may be thus frustratingly challenging to apply in practice. One area of emerging research is understanding the personal experiences of those who identify as gifted in order to better represent the myriad culturally diverse conceptions of giftedness that evolve over a lifetime. In this article, I employ an autoethnographic approach to explore aspects of my adult identity as an atypical learner. This journey unfolds in crafted vignettes that reveal the complexities and multi-dimensionality of my learning and are analysed using Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT). As I investigate my journey as a gifted lifelong learner at school, then as a teacher, teacher educator and corporate executive, three critical friends, the other authors of this paper, offer an etic perspective about my experiences of giftedness. The aim of the article is to illuminate the importance of examining personal experiences, stories and voice as a way of conceptualising giftedness, and to position giftedness as an evolving lifelong experience. In the article we offer several implications for the normalisation of giftedness in education which resonates into adulthood.The concept of giftedness is complex, contested and evolving and may be thus frustratingly challenging to apply in practice. One area of emerging research is understanding the personal experiences of those who identify as gifted in order to better represent the myriad culturally diverse conceptions of giftedness that evolve over a lifetime. In this article, I employ an autoethnographic approach to explore aspects of my adult identity as an atypical learner. This journey unfolds in crafted vignettes that reveal the complexities and multi-dimensionality of my learning and are analysed using Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT). As I investigate my journey as a gifted lifelong learner at school, then as a teacher, teacher educator and corporate executive, three critical friends, the other authors of this paper, offer an etic perspective about my experiences of giftedness. The aim of the article is to illuminate the importance of examining personal experiences, stories and voice as a way of conceptualising giftedness, and to position giftedness as an evolving lifelong experience. In the article we offer several implications for the normalisation of giftedness in education which resonates into adulthood.</p