![]() ![]() For gifted students from diverse cultural backgrounds, expectations of family and peers may be out of sync with expectations of themselves and teachers. Some of these expectations are that gifted students should be able to research the world of work and make higher education and career decisions themselves, that they should only apply to the most prestigious colleges, and that they will attend college before making any "real" career plans. This brings us to an important extrinsic factor affecting career development among the gifted, and that is the high expectations of others. They can have unusual or esoteric interests (Kerr and Sodano, 2003) and also become deeply invested in exploring ideas to their limits, which can hinder purposeful decision-making. These students can be very sensitive, especially to the expectations of parents and teachers. The traits that may affect career development tasks for gifted students include high levels of emotional and intellectual intensity and a strong sense of social justice (Lovecky, as cited in Greene 2002b). In addition, focusing on a high-prestige but conventional career, such as doctor or lawyer, can eliminate options with which students are not yet familiar. Since multi-potentiality may surface later in adolescence, an early ability in one area may create premature foreclosure. They may have mistaken self-efficacy beliefs if they are marginally less able in one area than another. Gifted students can have early career maturity (Greene, 2002b), but they may miss opportunities by focusing too early on one academic area (Greene, 2006). Students who ARE differentiated (and these are more likely to be male students with exceptional math and science abilities), need to made aware that multi-potentiality can surface in later adolescence (Kerr and Sodano, 2003). The ability to excel on multiple career paths can lead to paralysis: What should I do? The counselor should keep in mind that high ability does not translate to EQUAL ability across all domains, and that values and life goals can also be used as differentiating variables (Greene, 2002b Peterson, 2006). While this may not seem at the outset like a problem, from the student's perspective it can be troubling. Gifted students can experience high abilities across domains, and high, flat interest inventories. ![]() Multipotentiality is the ability to do many things at very high levels of competence and enjoyment (Greene, 2006 Robinson, Shore, and Enersen, 2007). Examples are high levels of emotional and intellectual intensity, and a strong sense of social justice. Others are intrinsic characteristics that are more prevalent in the gifted than in the mainstream student population that affect how they process information and what they value. ![]() Some of these are related to how the gifted may think specifically about careers, such as the concepts of multipotentiality, early emergence and foreclosure. There are several forces at play in the life of the gifted student that affect their career counseling needs. This article will identify some of the factors which affect the career development of gifted students and present some career counseling interventions that may be helpful to school counselors working with this population.įactors Affecting the Career Development of Gifted Students Like other diverse populations, gifted students have specialized career development requirements, and can be best served by counselors who are most familiar with their needs. Department of Education, 2007), and many students with similar characteristics are either gifted but not identified or are students at schools with no specialized gifted educational programs. public elementary and secondary school students are classified as gifted (U.S. A World of Possibilities: Career Development for Gifted Students By Jennifer Kass & Marion CavallaroĪpproximately 7% of all U.S. ![]()
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