GRADE SKIPPING: SOME GERMAN EXPERIENCES

After many years of neglect, the subject of giftedeness as a topic of research has once again received more attention in German speaking countries since the end of the 1970s. The somewhat hesitant, systematic study of highly gifted children and adolescents, especially the question of how to identify and encourage them, was accompanied over the years by controversial and exhaustive educational policy debates. Emphasis on aspects such as equality of opportunity and elitist education has, inter alia, contributed considerably to the fact that the interests of gifted children–even if discussions have aroused increasing public interest, i.e. discussion of giftedness has became socially acceptable — have only slowly begun to be emphasized. It is probably for this reason that little attention has been paid to grade skipping. The students in the present study who skipped a grade coped as a group quite well with work in the higher grade, depite a low level of support from the schools.