A History of American Gifted Education provides the first comprehensive history of the field of gifted education, which is essential to recognizing its contribution to the overall American educational landscape.

A History of American Gifted Education provides the first comprehensive history of the field of gifted education, which is essential to recognizing its contribution to the overall American educational landscape. The text relies heavily on primary documents and artifacts as well as essential secondary documents such as the disparate historical texts and relevant biographies that already exist. This book commences its investigation of American gifted education with the founding of the field of psychology and subsequently gifted education at the early part of the 20th century and concludes just over a century later with the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act in 2001.

"It may be impossible to navigate where the field of gifted education is going without a deep understanding of where it has been. A History of American Gifted Education is an essential text for anyone who studies or practices gifted education. Jolly deftly narrates the people and events that shaped the conceptual foundations of the field from the end of the nineteenth century to the early twenty-first century." -Todd Kettler, Ph.D., University of North Texas, USA"The reader will learn, in particular, about the contributions to the field of a range of scholars and educators (with biographical background to offer some context) and also about the activities of organisations that are influential in the story being told. These accounts of the work of specific characters and groups build into a narrative that gives a picture of an area of educational work subject to the whims of political policies and trends. This is a very informative book, and despite its national focus makes an interesting read for educators outside the United States who have an interest in gifted education. It links to core issues found elsewhere. History is an account of contingencies. Reading how support for carrying out gifted education policies ebbed and flowed in response to unrelated political imperatives in the United States brings to mind parallels elsewhere." -Keith S. Taber, University of Cambridge, History of Education