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Abstract
Gifted programs are an indispensable component of gifted education, and have drawn much academic attention in the recent years. However, the public images of such programs are still under-examined. In this study, we employed semantic network analysis and content analysis to uncover the public images of gifted programs in China and their change over time. Based on 1,486 Chinese news reports between 1978-2015 on gifted education, our analysis revealed four different images of gifted programs and their participants in China: “successful graduates”, “early ripe, early rot”, “superb intelligence”, and “all-around development”. The co-existence of two common stereotypes, “the chosen ones” and “Mad genius”, can be concluded from the emerging process of these four images and the correlations between them. In addition, the rise and fall of different images show how the public opinions of gifted programs change over time, influenced by both institutional interventions and culture shifts. The change over time is indicative of the social-constructive nature of public opinions towards gifted education.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Sheng-Peng Huang
Sheng-peng Huang is currently a PhD candidate at the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China. His research interests include the perceptions of giftedness in ancient China and the public opinion about giftedness in modern Chinese society. Email: [email protected]
Yan Kong
Yan Kong is Professor at the School of Humanities and Social Science, University of Science and Technology of China (USTC). She joined the Cooperative Research Group of Supernormal Children of China in 1985 and served as a director of the Special Class for Gifted Young (SCGY) at USTC. She is also the member of the Asia-Pacific Federation on Giftedness (APFG), and the European Council for High Ability (ECHA). She is currently leading a research group focusing on investigating the public perceptions and the practices of gifted education in China. Email: [email protected]
Ying (“Alison”) Cheng
Ying (“Alison”) Cheng is Associate Professor of Psychology and Fellow of the Institute for Educational Initiatives at University of Notre Dame. She received her M.S. in Statistics and Ph.D. in Quantitative Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Her research focuses on methodological issues in psychological and educational measurement. She currently serves as the Associate Editor of British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology, and the American Educational Research Journal. In 2017 she was elected as Fellow of the Society of Multivariate and Experimental Psychology. Email: [email protected]