ABSTRACT
Educational programmes and educational research arise where they are valued and supported. We do, in Australia, have some fine programmes for gifted students, such as Melbourne’s University High School and the Selective High Schools and Opportunity Classes in New South Wales; these programmes, however, are continually under attack from those politicians, community groups and teachers’ industrial unions to whom they represent an ideologically unacceptable premise: that gifted children differ, from their age-peers, in their capacity to learn, and need differentiated educational provision if they are to achieve at the level of which they are capable. Some sound research has been undertaken by Australian educators and psychologists with genuine knowledge and interest in the gifted, but generally research in gifted education in Australia is poorly funded and the results are not adequately disseminated. In any case, Australian teachers, unlike their counterparts in North America, have traditionally shown little interest in accessing the research literature in their fields. Perhaps reading the peer review journals savours too greatly of ‘intellectualism’.
