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Science Education as Gifted Education: Can We Conduct Gifted Education with Non-gifted Students?

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Science Education Research and Practice from Japan

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Abstract

In this chapter, by examining gifted education from the viewpoint of science education and education in the historical and cultural context of Japan, I discuss a new notion of gifted education, different from the conventional one that screens specific students to provide them with special programmes. At its core, gifted education has included students that have been differentiated, such as with the identification of ‘gifted’ children in a pull-out system of teaching. In other words, the concept of ‘gifted children’ inevitably creates the dilemma of setting apart ‘non-gifted’ children. After WWII, in 1947, the Ministry of Education of Japan enacted the national course of study from primary to high school, and since then, all public and private schools in Japan have followed that course of study, for over half a century, through several revisions. On the other hand, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Japan (MEXT) encourages national and international science contests and the number of participating students has tripled in the last decade. There are 217 high schools designated as ‘Super Science High Schools’ all over Japan in 2020. This contemporary double-standard science education in Japan is discussed as a first step in overcoming the paradox between standardised education and gifted education. Finally, the chapter discusses the fact that science education has great potential for the plurarisation of ‘giftedness’ and proposes an unique ‘Meson Model’ of education for the gifted.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Number JP17H00821.

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  1. Ehime University, Matsuyama, Japan

    Manabu Sumida

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  1. Manabu Sumida
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Correspondence to Manabu Sumida .

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  1. Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

    Tetsuo Isozaki

  2. Ehime University, Ehime, Japan

    Manabu Sumida

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Sumida, M. (2021). Science Education as Gifted Education: Can We Conduct Gifted Education with Non-gifted Students?. In: Isozaki, T., Sumida, M. (eds) Science Education Research and Practice from Japan. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2746-0_9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-2746-0_9

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