Who owns their story: Career construction with gifted and talented students

Abstract

Gifted and talented youth in the US have been struggling for recognition and appropriate educational opportunities for decades. Periodically, we are reminded of their unique needs. Time and again, those needs seem to be disregarded, including their need for career related planning and programming. Narratives of gifted students can be negatively impacted, as a result of action or inaction by young people themselves or of others in their lives. Three distinct problem saturated plots can emerge requiring career counselors to provide specific intervention to ensure narrative development in congruence with the hopes, dreams and desires of youth. Career construction theory, with its emphasis on authorship and agency is most suitable for increasing agency of the youth stuck in these narratives. My Career Story a group or individual intervention, rooted in career construction theory, offers assistance to both students and counselors, as students work to develop their own preferred narratives.