Culture, Time, and the Development of Talent

Abstract

The literature on giftedness gives the impression that most authors conceive of talent (talent, giftedness and prodigious performance will be used interchangeably) as a stable trait that belongs to a person. Although some writers have warned us not “to view giftedness as an absolute concept—something that exists in and of itself, without relation to anything else” (Renzulli 1980, p. 4), most people consider giftedness as an objective fact, something you either have or don’t have, like green eyes or a mole on the nose.