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How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Gifted Education in New York City

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International Handbook on Giftedness

Abstract

New York City provides a dynamic case study of problems and possibilities in urban gifted education. The story is grounded globally in changing understandings of teaching, learning, and expertise, based on converging evidence from developmental psychology, neuroscience, cognitive science, and education. Diverse forces are at play locally, including bottom-up and top-down political pressures, concerns about equity and social justice, media responses, and changing legislation and standards. Resulting changes in NYC educational practice are interpreted as a movement toward a mastery model of giftedness, including providing a flexible range of programming options to address individual students’ diverse gifted learning needs, expanded teacher development and networking opportunities, and changing identification policies. Recommendations focus on urban concerns and opportunities, with an emphasis on the importance to gifted development of practice, practice, practice.

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Matthews, D.J. (2009). How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall? Gifted Education in New York City. In: Shavinina, L.V. (eds) International Handbook on Giftedness. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-6162-2_72

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