The objective of this study was to assess, using an online survey, the attitudes of French elementary school teachers (N = 227) toward gifted students, their self-efficacy, and their use of pedagogical practices in relation to perceived eligibility and required investment. We also examined the effect of teachers' gender and of specific variables related to knowledge of giftedness. Our findings indicate that teachers hold a predominantly positive attitude toward gifted students and limited self-efficacy about teaching them. Additionally, teachers generally have a favorable perception of pedagogical practices tailored for gifted students and consider the investment required to implement them to be relatively manageable. However, in practice, these measures seem to be used moderately. Regression analyses show that perceived eligibility, followed by required investment and self-efficacy, are the best predictors of the frequency of using teaching practices, with significant variability depending on intervention.
The main objective of this study was to determine the relationship between physical activity (PA) and gifted achieving/underachieving young people, considering gender and educational stage. A total of 219 students from the 3rd year of Primary Education up to the 4th year of secondary education participated in the study. PA was assessed using the Physical Activity Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents. Academic performance was measured using students' average grades. The results indicated that there was no clear relationship between PA and academic performance in gifted students. However, PA levels were higher in boys with higher academic performance. In addition, the educational stage seemed to be a determinant for PA in the gifted population, with higher levels of PA in Primary School.
There is a myriad of scholarship on helping educators (i.e. teachers and administrators) to be (more) culturally competent in working with students of color. However, this is not often the case for school and mental health counselors. This article discusses two theories and one set of organizational standards that school and school-based mental health counselors can use in their efforts to become culturally responsive/competent with Black students in Gifted and Talented Education (GATE). These theories (i.e. racial identity development, Afrocentric Cultural Styles, and Social Justice Standards) can assist professionals in recruiting and retaining Black GATE students, as well as training colleagues on how to equitably work with this population. This manuscript is dedicated to understanding and addressing the social-emotional, psychological, and mental health development and needs of P-12 advanced Black students.
The science of wisdom draws on ancient archetypes of wisdom that provide important models for living a good life, but none of them seems adequate for STEM wisdom because they don't have any obvious connection to science and technology. In this paper, we propose addressing gaps in contemporary STEM education by adapting another ancient archetype that the wise scholar-craftsman, exemplified by the ancient Mesopotamian umm & acirc;nu (Akkadian for expert-scholar and master craftsman). Using historical analysis, we show the value of the umm & acirc;nu model for developing STEM wisdom, a special case of scientific wisdom. This is because of the umm & acirc;nu emphasis on truth-telling, self-transcendence, humility, foresight, and civic service that provided a framework for cultivating both technical proficiency and the ethical and critical-thinking skills necessary for socially responsible innovation today.
STEM research has led to extraordinary advancements, but not all STEM knowledge contributes to the greater good. In this paper, we discuss the nature of wisdom from a psychological standpoint and apply this understanding to STEM contexts. First, we define wisdom according to a recent integrative model and then use this model to explore what a wise STEM researcher and research group would look like. Second, we discuss structural obstacles to wisdom in STEM research, such as concerns with productivity, notoriety, and profitability. Finally, we conclude with an exploration of what wise STEM education might involve. This paper is a call to all STEM researchers and educators to infuse wisdom into their practice for the benefit of the greater good.
STEM education is often viewed as a gateway for preparing students to solve important world problems. However, STEM learning in K-12 settings often focuses on building technical skills without helping students reflect on larger questions, such as who their work serves, how it impacts others, and whether it contributes to a more just world. This paper explores how neurodiverse gifted learners, specifically children with autism and demonstrable high-level skills, engage in an engineering design activity, with attention to how they approach problem solving and their understanding of ethics, empathy, and social responsibility, collectively, STEM wisdom. This exploratory study draws on a naturalistic inquiry approach to explore how three children with autism participated in a rollercoaster design challenge. Findings show that the children were deeply engaged in problem solving and iterative design, but without structured prompts, they did not often consider questions of safety, user diversity, or broader societal impact. With gentle facilitation and reflection questions, children demonstrated early ethical reasoning and user-centered thinking, suggesting that STEM wisdom can be supported through the intentional design of learning environments. This study advocates for a broader definition of giftedness in STEM, one that encompasses neurodiverse learners and acknowledges the significance of cultivating adaptive intelligence. Adaptive intelligence includes the ability to think creatively, analytically, practically, and wisely for individual and societal benefit. The paper closes with practical suggestions for educators on how to design engineering learning experiences that encourage technical problem-solving and reflection on STEM's societal impact.
Courage is an essential yet understudied component of innovation and ethical leadership, especially in the STEM fields. This paper introduces the ecological system model of courage, inspired by Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory, to conceptualize courage across five levels-micro-, meso-, exo-, macro-, and chrono-courage. The model illustrates how courage develops within nested systems, from individual acts of bravery to collective, long-term societal transformation. We argue that transformational courage is vital for addressing global challenges such as climate change, public health crises, and systemic inequities. This paper highlights the importance of fostering multilevel courage in educational, professional, and societal settings for sustained impact and resilience.
Currently, most education for the gifted, including STEM education for the gifted, places great emphasis on the development of knowledge, analytical skills, and less often, creative skills, but little or no emphasis on the development of wisdom-related skills. We argue that this failure to emphasize the development of wisdom is a serious mistake. Science, technology, engineering, and mathematics can be used for good ends, but too often, are being used for bad ends by gifted individuals whose education and reward systems do not prepare them for the challenges the world faces today. The goal of this article and of this special issue is to encourage STEM education for gifted students that recognizes, develops, and rewards STEM wisdom-the seeking of a common good over the long- as well as the short term.
STEM wisdom is the application of wisdom to science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Wisdom is defined here as the seeking of a common good; by balancing one's own, others,' and larger interests; over the long- as well as the short-term; through the infusion of positive ethical values. Creative ideas and innovations need to be judged through the lens of wisdom, because the ideas and innovations may be helpful, or they may be harmful or even disastrous. A tree-of-philosophy (TOP) theory is suggested as a basis for deciding whether creative innovations are positive and perhaps even positively transformational. Students of STEM need to learn not only STEM content, but also to apply the lens of wisdom to judge their own and others' STEM innovations for the effect they will have on science and the world.
How can one bring wisdom into STEM education? One popular position holds that wise judgment follows from teaching morals and ethics in STEM. However, wisdom scholars debate the causal role of morality and whether presence of apriori moral dispositions is a necessary condition for cultivating and expressing wisdom. Some philosophers, education practitioners and behavioral scientists champion this view, whereas social psychologists and cognitive scientists argue that moral features like prosocial behavior are reinforcing factors or outcomes of wise judgment rather than pre-requisites. This debate matters particularly for science and technology, where wisdom-demanding decisions typically involve incommensurable values and radical uncertainty. Here, we evaluate these competing positions through four lines of evidence. First, empirical research shows that heightened moralization aligns with foolish rejection of scientific claims, political polarization, and value extremism. Second, scholarship on repeated economic games (Folk Theorem) suggests that wisdom-related metacognition—perspective-integration, context-sensitivity, and balancing long- and short-term goals—can give rise to prosocial behavior without an apriori moral blueprint. Third, in real life, moral values often compete, making metacognition indispensable to balance competing interests for the common good. Fourth, numerous scientific tasks require wise handling of ill-defined challenges, without a clear role of morals for such tasks. We address potential objections about immoral and Machiavellian applications of blueprint-free wisdom accounts. Finally, we explore implications for giftedness: what exceptional wisdom looks like in STEM context, and how to train it in the classroom via self-reflection exercises and exercises that highlight one’s knowledge gaps.
Generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a booming part of the technology industry, and college students majoring in disciplines such as Computer and Information Sciences are increasingly pursuing lucrative jobs to develop AI applications for major companies. However, research is unveiling harmful effects of AI products, which limit people’s freedom of thought. AI developers are largely failing to anticipate these harms as companies incentivize quick rollouts and profitable products. We review the literature revealing AI’s cognitive harms, arguing that they are partially caused by students failing to exercise wisdom once they join the workforce. We propose strategies for STEM educators to encourage the development of STEM wisdom in their students, modeled after Sternberg’s (2024c) 8-step process of ethical reasoning. This article provides a practical guide to educators, with actionable recommendations to prevent further downstream harms of AI products their students build.
