Editorial and Introduction
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Editorial and Introduction Very seldom have the necessities, theories, and practices of counseling the gifted and talented been treated in this Journal. This does not mean that we underestimate the importance of this area of our profession. Not only do highly gifted and talented persons in need deserve counseling like everybody else, but societies, all people, profit from their development, achievements, and leadership. We must admit, however, that, historically, all people and societies have not accepted this truth. Under the pressure of small budgets for counseling services and limited numbers of counselors, also in educational settings, it seemed more important to help the disadvantaged, the handicapped, the disturbed, and the less gifted. Gifted people can help themselves, people thought. It took almost a century of research to reveal the fact that this is not true. We now know much more about the sorrows and needs of extraordinary children, adolescents, and adults with outstanding abilities and achievements. There is an enlightening literature on giftedness, its nature, its development, and the necessities and the methods of helping gifted people to reach their potential and share their abilities with the rest of their societies. Nevertheless, the standards of gifted education and counseling are still very diverse in our present world. Not only are there countries where special educational endeavours for the gifted and talented are unknown (for that reason colleagues were unable to answer our call for papers). But even within one society there are often great differences between various States or Provinces in this matter (see, e.g., Lupart et al. on Canada, in this volume). In order to shed some light on the state of gifted education and counseling in various parts of the world, we have invited a number of knowledgable colleagues from various societies to report on the situation in their countries, and this IJAC Special Issue publishes the results. The authors were given a few guidelines so that a certain level of comparability could be reached. However, some colleages from developing countries could not submit articles because in their societies other problems are more pressing. It is impossible to understand the endeavours made in our field without insight into several contextual variables such as societal conditions, including the appreciation of giftedness. Fundamental are the educational systems: goals, 169 C 2005 Springer Science+Business Media, Inc. 0165-0653/05/0600-0169/0
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organization, curriculum; egalitarian or selective structures; integration vs. individualization; special arrangements for the gifted and talented, and so forth. These variables form the context in which the counseling needs of excellent students arise. Of course, authors were also asked to report on their definition and understanding of giftedness; on the methods of identification and selection of gifted children and adolescents; on the existence and organization of guidance and counseling for our target group
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