The education of gifted and talented pupils is an established domain of study but research in the area has increased dramatically, particularly in the past fifteen years. The reason for this burgeoning interest relates principally not to conventional educational concerns but rather to the desire of governments around the world to maximize intellectual capital better to compete in a globalized economy. Nurturing those with exceptional ability is now seen as a societal necessity rather than simply an educational objective. A secondary aspect of this societal interest relates to equity; gifted and talented programmes are at the forefront of national and international educational policy and they are increasingly being adopted in the pursuit of meritocracy as a mechanism to improve life chances and to stimulate social mobility.

As serious thinking about and around the education of the gifted and talented continues to flourish, this new title in the Routledge series, Major Themes in Education, meets the need for an authoritative reference work to codify and make sense of the field’s literature. Edited by Deborah Eyre, the founding Director of the world-renowned Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth at the University of Warwick, this new Major Work brings together in four volumes the foundational and the best cutting-edge scholarship. The editor has drawn on the most important and influential research from a broad range of countries to create a one-stop ‘mini library’ which describes and analyses the rationale and purposes of gifted education. Particular attention has been paid to the controversies surrounding definitions and the identification of giftedness, and the collection provides a substantial overview of best practice in relation to education in schools and classrooms, as well as special programmes. The material gathered also closely considers the substantial hurdles that may face children identified as especially gifted.

Gifted and Talented Education is fully indexed and has a comprehensive introduction, newly written by the editor, which places the collected material in its historical and intellectual context. It is an essential library purchase and is destined to be valued by scholars and students―as well as by educational policy-makers―as a vital reference work and research tool.