Teachers’ perspectives in North Italy and in the Netherlands: how teachers approach gifted students

Teachers’ perspective play a key role in supporting gifted children in the classroom setting (Moon & Brighton, 2008; Persson, 1998). To understand how Italian and Dutch teachers think about gifted students and gifted education, we organized focus groups in North Italy and in the Netherlands and we interviewed teachers individually. Italian and Dutch teachers seem to approach gifted student in a similar way: they use differentiated teaching, pull-out classes and enrichnment program. However, Italian teachers tend to engage gifted students in the regular classroom while many Dutch teachers offer specific services.