ABSTRACT
Educational programming, clinical practice, and even parenting decisions are shaped and driven by beliefs and philosophies. Beliefs that gifted children, adolescents, and adults exist leads to defining who those individuals are. In schools, it leads to the formal definition of which traits characterize the population of students we will identify—and serve—as gifted. Definitions are also greatly influenced by the social and political contexts of the times. Recognition of the possibility of outstanding performance across a wide range of performance realms has always been part of history. The evolving work in defining and examining intelligence in the field of psychology has also influenced the conceptions and definitions of giftedness used in research and practice. The belief that the purpose of education is to transmit knowledge and cultural understandings leads to different educational programs than the belief that the purpose of education is to teach students to be critical thinkers, agents of social change, or problem solvers.
