Extending sociological theorising on high ability: the significance of values and lived experience

Abstract

Sociological work on high ability is framed by social constructionist theorising and/or takes a social justice approach, and hence particular analytical intellectual traditions are foregrounded. Whilst these approaches have contributed the main critique of essentialist psychological understandings of high ability, they can eclipse normative discourses and the ethically situated meaning of high ability for individuals. This paper explores why epistemological questions about high ability cannot be separated from values-based ones and assesses where this has happened in relation to sociological approaches to high ability. It suggests that a narrative approach is one way of enriching sociological theories and discourses of high ability and that this can progress not only sociological, but interdisciplinary theorising in the field.