Ability climates in Europe as socially represented notability

Abstract

The objective of this research was to study whether ability climate was a useful construct in exploring the possible pattern by which abilities were valued in the countries and cultures of Europe. Based on Moscovici's theory of social representations lists of famous and notable individuals published by the Wikipedia Encyclopedia were analyzed. In all, lists of 29 European countries representing 20,516 individuals perceived to be notable were subjected to a content analysis and a subsequent frequency analysis. The reliability of data derived from a database such as the Wikipedia will be discussed at length. Results suggested that as based on dominant ability clusters there appeared to exist three types of European ability climates: a uniform ability climate; a divergent ability climate, and a diverse ability climate; each of which was characterized by clusters of abilities that seemed to be particularly valued in a given European country. The possible implications of the result will be discussed. IntroductionAs the systematic study into the dynamics of Scandinavian egalitarian policies and their effect on the life and mind of intellectually gifted individuals commenced by the mid-1990s, it was assumed that the well documented and quite formidable resistance against introducing and implementing gifted education into the national educational systems, was mainly caused by current lack of knowledge and available information of the special needs of gifted students (Persson

Finnish Elementary School Teachers’ Attitudes Toward Gifted Education

“…Finn and Wright (2015) also identified a "Finnish mindset," in which "standing out" except in music and sports is unfashionable, in effect, a fundamental Finnish value that encourages both inclusion and uniformity in education (Finn & Wright, 2015). Thus, in Finland, the reluctance to promote giftedness is apparent especially with regard to intellectual giftedness (Persson, 2011). In this egalitarian atmosphere, it might be hard to discuss giftedness or to identify someone or oneself as gifted.…”

Educators’ perceptions of mathematically gifted students and a socially supportive learning environment – A case study of a Finnish upper secondary school

“…As a result, Nordic public discourse (Laine, 2010;Persson, 2011) and educators' conceptions of giftedness (Mattsson, 2013) lack coherent definitions and interest in intellectual giftedness (Laine, 2010;Mattsson, 2013;Persson, 2011). As an example, Finland's normative National Core Curriculum for General Upper Secondary Schools (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2015) offers no guidance on gifted education, and the current Core Curriculum for Basic Education (Finnish National Agency for Education, 2014) is the first to even mention talented students.…”

Wikipedia as a Virtual Learning Site and a Multilingual Languaging Site

“…As noted, notability standards vary somewhat between Wikipedia languages. Which topics actually have articles written varies between languages, and is strongly affected by cultural differences (Gloor et al, 2015;Persson, 2011). Unsurprisingly, most Wikipedia languages have good coverage of topics within their own cultural sphere-all the kings of Sweden have articles on Swedish-language Wikipedia-but sparser coverage of culturally distant topics.…”