Abstract

Research on gifted education demonstrates how these programs contribute globally to the reproduction of social inequalities. Despite these findings, gifted education has been remarkably successful in the 21st century. However, the need to equate the inclusion of women, first‐generation students, and students with a migration background in gifted education has simultaneously intensified. Both developments are embedded in profound transformations of the education system globally, especially in the social diversification of student populations and the concurrent demand for excellence in academic research. The German Academic Scholarship Foundation (Studienstiftung) is the largest gifted education program in Germany and one of the oldest worldwide. In recent years, the Studienstiftung has tried to diversify their students. Based on a discourse analysis, which uses the concepts of justification, critique, and regimes of justification, I examine official documents of the Studienstiftung between 1925 and 2018. In doing so, I show that the spirit of the Studienstiftung and their handling of social statistics raise doubts concerning the successful diversification of their students—as the Studienstiftung has claimed. Finally, I discuss several measures that might be useful to support social diversification in gifted education in the future.

Highlights

  • Since their establishment in Europe and the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, gifted edu‐ cation programs have been remarkably successful over time

  • The Studienstiftung introduced different measures like a new selection procedure, cooperation with organisations that focus on social equity, an additional recommendation of first‐generation students (FGS) by school principals, the sensibilisation of the selection committee to the issue of social inequality, school visits by Studienstiftung scholars to inform stu‐ dents about the opportunity to apply for a scholarship, and two social surveys

  • Following the works of Desrosières (2014) and Espeland (2015), I concentrate in the second part of my analysis on how the critique and justification of the Studienstiftung rely on social statistics, how these statistics are con‐ structed and interpreted, how they are intertwined with organisational change and the question of diversification of gifted education

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Summary

Introduction

Since their establishment in Europe and the United States at the beginning of the 20th century, gifted edu‐ cation programs have been remarkably successful over time. The Studienstiftung had to react to the critique that it supported a “self‐reproduction of the German Bildungsbürgertum [educated elite]” and that their selection interviews “do not focus on spe‐ cialised knowledge, but on knowledge about art and lit‐ erature” (Kerbusk, 2009). Due to these critiques, the Studienstiftung introduced different measures like a new selection procedure, cooperation with organisations that focus on social equity, an additional recommendation of FGS by school principals, the sensibilisation of the selection committee to the issue of social inequality, school visits by Studienstiftung scholars to inform stu‐ dents about the opportunity to apply for a scholarship, and two social surveys. I discuss measures that could support the diversification of gifted students

Why and How Gifted Education Fails to Diversify Its Student Population
Justification of Gifted Education on the Level of Discourse
Analysis
The Spirit of the Studienstiftung
The Handling of Social Statistics
Findings
Discussion and Conclusion
Full Text
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