Conceptions of Giftedness and Creativity from Africa

Recently, gifted education has become an arena of much debate. Contradictions and disagreements surround how we define and select gifted students into special programming. Conventional tools and models are all grounded in the West. When applied in gifted programming, IQ-based models fail to identify diverse students talents. The area of giftedness is under-researched and not well understood from an African perspective. This research endeavour broke new ground by tapping sociocultural conceptions to inform gifted education from an African perspective, espoused in Shona culture of Zimbabwe. While Zimbabwe s stone sculptors transformed Shona traditional sculpture into an envied world class art, it was not clear how they derive the inspiration and vision that propel their art. Data were analyzed in two studies informed by questionnaire responses from Zimbabwean professors, and interviews with 20 Shona stone sculptors. The analysis should help professionals in gifted education and the art field, and should be especially useful in marketing Zimbabwean stone sculpture. In addition, anyone seeking to understand alternative conceptions of giftedness and creativity can be enriched.