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Handbook of Giftedness in Children pp 115–128Cite as

Gender and Talent Development of Gifted Students

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Abstract

For most of the history of the psychology of talent development, gender was simply construed as a binary construct based on the biological aspects of sex characteristics. Although gradually psychologists began to distinguish between biological sex and gender role, the socially constructed ideas of behaviors appropriate to male and female sex, it is only more recently that gender has been considered as a nonbinary complex. Therefore, this chapter presents gender on a continuum and will provide an overview of gender development in gifted students. Furthermore, the chapter detail issues specific to self-identified girls, self-identified boys, and LGBTQ gifted students. It should be noted that in the gifted education literature, biological sex is used almost exclusively; therefore within the context of this chapter we attempt to clarify that biological sex is not all encompassing. Suggestions for psychologists working with gifted students are presented.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology and Research in Education, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Barbara A. Kerr

  2. University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS, USA

    Jonathan M. Huffman

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  1. Barbara A. Kerr
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  2. Jonathan M. Huffman
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Correspondence to Barbara A. Kerr .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Education, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, USA

    Steven I. Pfeiffer

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Kerr, B.A., Huffman, J.M. (2018). Gender and Talent Development of Gifted Students. In: Pfeiffer, S. (eds) Handbook of Giftedness in Children. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77004-8_8

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