Much like medieval, feudal nations, professional fields such as gifted education can take shape as centralized kingdoms with strong armies controlling their compliant populations and protecting closed borders, or as loose collections of conflict-prone principalities with borders open to invaders. Using an investigative framework borrowed from an interdisciplinary group of scholars in the social sciences and humanities, four scholars of gifted education analyzed four different analytic levels of our field (practice, research, theory, philosophy) to discern whether gifted education is unified, insular, and firmly policed, or fractured, conflict-ridden, and porous. Each disciplinary structure generates unique advantages, disadvantages, and implications for scholars and practitioners. Do some leaders in the field of gifted education operate like medieval monarchs, controlling and protecting their intellectual serfs while occasionally laying siege to enemy thought castles? Coleman (2003)

A B S T R AC TThere is growing concern in our field about the plight of high-potential children who suffer from socioeconomlic deprivation. Efforts to find and serve these children require in-depth understanding of socioeconomic contexts that shape and subvert talent development. Ix) this analysis, socioeconomic barriers to talent development are explored from the vantage points of Major thinkers and recent research findings in context-sensitive disciplines such as economics, sociology, and ethical philosophy. Insights drawn fron these perspectives provide the basis for recommendations that educators of the gifted clarify conceptions of nerit and ability; look for hidden socioeconomic influences on aspirations, motivation, and talent development; and engage in critical activisin for deprived high-potential children.

Practitioners, researchers, and theorists can establish stronger rationale and direction for their work through better understanding of the conceptual foundations that influence the field of education of the gifted. Navigation along three interpretive dimensions can clarify and expand these conceptual foundations, which currently suffer from fragmentation and insularity. One of these dimensions invites movement through several different world views. Another dimension invites interdisciplinary movement from the precision of the "hard" sciences to the uncertain complexity of the "soft and human" sciences. A third dimension promotes movement through different levels of analysis, ranging from panoramic levels of philosophical and theoretical perspectives to the grounded levels of empirical research and practical application. A three-dimensional model illustrates the dynamics of these movements while highlighting some barriers that cause fragmentation and insularity in conceptual foundations. Recommendations for breaking through these barriers are provided.In rcccnt wcnr:,, sclu>I.rrs both within and hcvond thc tielcl ot education for the 4iftcd haB'e rceo.~nized a prohlcm < > t fra.~-mentation in con <.:eptllaI tlHllldations fol-theory. research. and practice (scc Am))rose. 1()()O~ Cohen. 1 (mH. 19<)2: Cohen 0.: .Bmhrw;e. I <>V,1= (:oleman. S:md<.:rs. 0.: Cross. ] ()<)7: Dyson. 1~~5.()verto)L ]<)S4. 1 ')c) l a; Stcrtthet;~, ]()90). ).Scholars or practitioners tend to faB'or parfientar theories or practices, rcnuunity unaware ofmany possibilities inherent in other ideas. In the postmodern tllct-e is )roBB~ill,) recognition that conceptual foundations t<>r most tields of inquire'are diverse and lu,s;hlv ccnnplct. Barriers That Obscure 13i~;-Pieture Perception of (conceptual Foundations This ecnnplevitw tjlc prohlen] c~h' dogmatic insularity. BB'hen inB'estinators study the same phencnnenon from different perspectives and with different toots. they often launch into arguments over which is the c<>r-rect approach, dogmatically entrenching themselves ever more firmly in their original positions (Pepper. 1~42). Dogmatic insularity arises from differences in scholars' (a) world views, (h) disciplinary specializations, and (c) preferred levels ot operation, ran~in~ from the abstractions of theory to practical application. Incompatibility of World newsAccording to Overtoil (1984) and Pcppcr (1942). scvcral philosophical world views implicitly shape scholars' helicis about the nature of appropriate invest(gatiB'C methodologies, and about the very nature of reality. Philosophical insularity arises when scholars and practitioners do not adequately appreciate the viewpoints of colleagues whose world views differ from their own. These world views include mechanism, contextualism, oi-giiiicisni, and formism. Pt TTtN(T THE RESEARCH TO nŒScholars and practitioners who transcend world views, disciplines, and levels of operation can expand their perceptions of bi~-picturc issues that intluence the field. Scholars can access new ...

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