Purpose:This study explores the contributions and effectiveness of the Jockey Club "Giftedness into Flourishing Talents" Project (Project GIFT) in supporting learner diversity in gifted education, including meeting the educational and psychological needs of highly capable and gifted students in Hong Kong.Design/Approach/Methods:This study investigates the effectiveness of Project GIFT in supporting the development of diversity in learning in 20 project schools. Through close cooperation with project schools, Project GIFT comprised six developmental areas: school development, curriculum development, teachers' professional development, parent empowerment, student development, and financial support. To further assess the usefulness of the school-based support provided by Project GIFT, this study examines the implementation of school-based gifted education in two project schools based on the aforementioned components.Findings:This study reveals Project GIFT's significant role in promoting school-based gifted education in Hong Kong schools. Indeed, it was the first cross-institutional and research-based educational program in gifted education that intervened at both Level 1 (whole class) and Level 2 (pullout) of the three-tiered policy stipulated by the Hong Kong Education Bureau. One of the few gifted education programs implemented in Asia, Project GIFT focused on six key components to specifically support high-ability and gifted students with diverse educational and affective needs. This study shows that Project GIFT significantly enhanced diversity in learning, its collaboration with two key schools resulting in the successful enhancement of school development, professional development, curriculum development, student development, parent empowerment, and financial support.Originality/Value:The article fills the research gap by examining the effectiveness of a school-based gifted education program focused on enriching and differentiating curricula for different regular

A significant feature in the Chinese literature concerning giftedness is a deemphasis on natural ability and an emphasis on the impact of nurturing and learning. Through a qualitative approach, this project explores Hong Kong Chinese parents’ understandings and beliefs of giftedness, and their expected parental behaviours with their children. Thirty-two Hong Kong parents of young children are interviewed to examine their understandings of giftedness, and both qualitative and quantitative analyses are employed. The research findings offer insight to parents, educators and policy makers on the education of gifted and talented young children. This research project is the first of a three-phase longitudinal study that has the broad aim of uncovering the relationship between young parents’ conceptions of giftedness toward the education of gifted children, and their subsequent behaviours in the education of their children. In this phase of the project, the specific aims are to determine the conceptions of giftedness among Hong Kong Chinese parents, and their parenting behaviour and practices in relation to their children’s education – given the possibility that their child may be identified (or labelled) as “gifted”. Total of thirty-two semi-structured interviews are conducted with Hong Kong Chinese parents of children age 3-6 years old. This approach will be repeated in the subsequent two phases of the project to uncover any changes in their conceptions, and to characterize their actual behaviours in relations to their child’s education. Against the recent intense public interest in a small number of gifted children in Hong Kong, the findings of the first phase of this project will contribute to our basic understanding of the cultural basis of conceptions of giftedness, help shape future policy initiatives of the Hong Kong government. In the first and subsequent phases of the project, findings are also expected to provide specific advice to schools on how to implement these

Despite sharing a common cultural heritage, recent developments in gifted education in several countries and regions within East Asia, including the People’s Republic of China (mainland China), Taiwan, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (SAR), Singapore, Japan, and South Korea, show that each country and region is now characterized by different approaches to gifted education. However, the challenges facing many of these countries and regions are remarkably similar, including a number of fundamental issues such as misconceptions as to the role of gifted education within communities that are dominated by extensive and pervasive examination systems, and the limited roles of indigenous research in conceptions of giftedness and curriculum development. In contrast, gifted education in Japan has had a “virtual” existence over many years, although the ability of its education systems – both public and private – to meet the specific needs of its “gifted” students is yet to be determined.
[Copyright © Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2009.]

Overexcitabilities (OEs) are ways that an individual experiences the world and can be understood as channels of information flow. The current study examined the profile of OEs among a group of Hong Kong children. Participants included 229 non-gifted and 217 gifted children. OEs were measured using the Overexcitability Questionnaire II. Results indicated that there were differences between the gifted and the non-gifted groups in all OE subscales. Gender differences were also identified. Females, in both gifted and non-gifted groups, have a significantly higher score in Emotional OE when compared to males. In addition, gifted females also scored significantly higher than their male counterparts in Sensual OE. Results of this study were compared to a group of American children (based on C.L. Tieso's work on overexcitabilities in 2007). The implications and limitations of this study are presented.
[Copyright of Asia Pacific Journal of Education is the property of Routledge. Full article may be available at the publisher's website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02188790903503601]