ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author asserts that giftedness is not a fact of nature or something that educators and psychologists have discovered. The author reviews the evolution of this construction and discusses some of the practical implications of the construct's application in education. A good case can and has been made for the assertion that intelligence is an invented concept, something that did not exist before Herbert Spencer introduced the word into the scientific lexicon in the 19th century. Under the perhaps self-justifying label of "authentic assessment" can be found a number of ideas and practices that reflect changes in the ways educators are currently thinking about assessment of students' abilities and achievement. Sapon-Shevin was arguing that people response to certain aspects of the nearly infinite human diversity that are manifest in school classrooms has been, in part, to form discrete categories and dichotomies grounded in reification.
