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There is insufficient Swedish research on giftedness and home-school collaboration and meeting gifted children’s needs in early childhood education. This qualitative study explored these issues by interviewing parents of gifted children. The thematic analysis examined parents’ descriptions of children’s early development, asynchronicity, and differences from their peers. The parents’ stories of their children’s first encounters with the Swedish school system evoked reports of contentment, suffering, and exhaustion. Adopting Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory, the study shows how the parents positioned enabling and limiting factors for their children’s acceptance and further development at different system levels. Positive learning conditions in preschool (unlike primary school), and respectful home–school communication were identified as crucial to gifted children’s development and well-being.

The purpose of this article is to explore how public discussions on giftedness and gifted students are framed in two of Sweden’s leading newspapers over a 25-year period (1995-2019). We explored discourse within 72 articles, using a time-sensitive analysis combined with a ‘What’s the problem represented to be?’ approach. The results show that the concept of giftedness became established during the period, although there were also counter-discourses questioning what ‘giftedness’ means and how schools should be organised. There is a lack of more in-depth discussions about how social class, ethnicity, or gender can affect how students are regarded in school, or how teaching can affect intellectual development. Instead, there is a strong stance in favour of individualised teaching.

Based on four articles, this compilation thesis analyses different actors’ constructions of giftedness and ideas about meeting gifted children’s needs in preschool and early childhood educational settings. Previous research has highlighted gifted children’s need for early educational adaptations and support for their continued development and maintained desire for learning. Because children’s early educational experiences influence their continued cognitive, social and emotional development, constructions of giftedness at different societal levels surrounding the child were important to explore. Questions addressed included how pre- school personnel, principals and parents of gifted children talk about giftedness, how the construction of giftedness changes over time in Swedish daily press, and what meanings talk about giftedness have for gifted children’s provided education in preschool and school. The theoretical framework underpinning the entire thesis is social constructivism. In addition, special educational perspectives, Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory model, and discourse analysis were used to analyse the respondents’ understandings. Empirically, the thesis is based on material collected in four studies conducted between 2019-2021. These include an on-line questionnaire to preschool personnel (n=78), interviews with preschool teachers (10) and principals (5), interviews with parents (16), and an overview of Swedish newspaper articles about giftedness (n=72). Results show that constructions of giftedness create tensions by generating diverse ideas about the offered teaching in practice, alongside different views of hindering factors for providing an adequate education, organizational thresholds or lack of education about giftedness. Dilemmas included planning an education that meet the needs of all – as well as individual children’s needs. Another dilemma was naming someone gifted in a strong tradition of an egalitarian education. How preschool staff, principals, parents and newspaper debates construct giftedness is vital for making conscious choices and treatment of giftedness in a preschool and school for all.

The purpose of this article was to investigate the conditions for identifying gifted children in their first encounter with the Swedish school system, the preschool. Interviews were conducted with 10 preschool teachers and 5 principals about their conceptions of giftedness and challenges in meeting the needs of gifted preschoolers in practice. The results explored a lack of knowledge on giftedness among the respondents. Thus, their conceptions of giftedness revealed several dilemmas they face when balancing preschool education between focusing on both the group and individual children, and naming someone as gifted in the strong discourse of egalitarian education in Sweden. The findings identified principals to have a key role in terms of if and how gifted children are supported in preschool settings and suggestions for future research are discussed.

Early attention of giftedness is argued to support continued development and learning for gifted children. The focus of this article is therefore on investigating preschool personnel’s perceptions on giftedness and gifted children. Data was produced using a nationwide online survey, including personnel from eleven Swedish preschools (N = 78). The questions spanned between suggestions for their own descriptions of giftedness, views on support for gifted children, to who in the work team they consider should be responsible for adaptations and support for gifted children. The main conclusions from the survey reveals a lack of education of giftedness among the respondents. Furthermore, a majority of the preschool personnel believe that gifted children have the right to be noted in preschool settings, but few have suggestions on how this should be conducted. The respondents had high confidence that their own preschools were sufficient to meet the needs of gifted children, but the obstacles described were lack of time, lack of suitable teaching materials and that the group sizes were too large. Further conclusions are that principals have an important role on drawing attention to giftedness in preschool settings and that there is a need for more research in this area.