Gifted education in Russia: Developing, threshold, or developed

Abstract

Multiple recent reviews have compared and contrasted the Russian (post-Soviet) system of identifying and educating gifted and talented students with other systems in the world. Correspondingly, this essay only briefly outlines the main features of this system in Russia and focuses primarily on the questions identified as key by the editors of this special issue. It provides a demographic–economic, educational, and historical consideration of the system, presents its essential features, comments on the system’s contribution to international science and the practice of identifying and nurturing gifted and talented students, and outlines the system’s points of future possible growth.

Keywords:

• gifted and talented children and youth
• academic olympiads
• Russian education
• Russian psychology

Public interest statement

This essay outlines the system of identification and education of gifted and talented children and youth in Russia. It provides the reader with an opportunity to appreciate the historical roots, current state, and future goals of the system. The essay is conceived to be of interest to policy-makers, educators, and parents of gifted and talented children and youth.

Notes

1. Tatiana Anatolyevna Tarasova is a Russian figure skating coach and national figure skating team adviser.

2. Elena Konstantinova Adzhemova is a Russian violin player and a professor of one of the most prestigious academies, the Academy named after the Gnesin Family.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elena L. Grigorenko

Elena L. Grigorenko received her PhD in general psychology from Moscow State University, Russia and her PhD in developmental psychology and genetics from Yale University, USA. Currently, Grigorenko is affiliated with five universities: Baylor College of Medicine, University of Houston and Yale University in the USA, and Moscow State University for Psychology and Education and St. Petersburg State University in Russia. Grigorenko has published more than 500 peer-reviewed articles, book chapters, and books. She has received multiple professional awards for her work and received funding for her research from numerous federal and private sponsoring organizations in the USA and Russia and other countries. Grigorenko has worked with children and their families in the USA as well as in Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Zanzibar, Ghana, the Gambia, and Zambia), India, Saudi Arabia, and Russia.