Professor Rex Li

This book is based on the collection of papers presented at the Eleventh World Conference on Gifted and Talented Children in Hong Kong from July 30 to August 4, 1995. The theme of the conference is “Maximizing Potential: Lengthening and Strengthening Our Stride”. Besides the 4 keynote papers at the beginning, there are altogether 107 papers grouped under seven strands as listed in the conference programme.

 

These seven strands are (1) Programme Development, (2) Research and Theory Development, (3) Professional Development, (4) Special Aspects of Giftedness, (5) Recognizing Special Populations, (6) Community Support, and (7) Facing New Challenging Issues. Whilst there are many overlapping areas among the strands, the broad issues of each paper fall within the strand designated.

 

This publication is truly international in the sense that not only are the authors from many different countries including United Kingdom, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Romania, Yugoslavia, Slovenia, Republic of South Africa, U.S.A., Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, People’s Republic of China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, but also the problems and issues related to gifted and talented education are very varied and specific to their unique cultures and educational practices.

 

An obvious feature one may notice in this book is that the idea of creativity and divergent thinking runs through practically all the papers, since we recognize that gifted and talented individuals are generally more creative, without whose contribution we would not be able to produce new concepts, innovative products, and fanciful inventions. With this in mind, all the papers in fact aim at enhancing originality of our students through the development of different aspects of their talents by various programmes and professionals.