Erika Landau’s Contribution to the History of Gifted Education

Abstract

This book describes some of the most critical issues in gifted education, i.e., gender inequity concerning giftedness examinations and the boys/girls ratio. The book also discusses the background of the gifted child's family, including their parents' education and number of their siblings. The book's findings are based on quantitative studies concerning 5-15-year-old gifted children participating at the Erika Landau Institute for Gifted and Creative Children and Youths in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 1968 until 2003. It discusses aspects such as the advantages of affirmative action standards in gifted education because girls who score lower than boys on the admission test to a gifted program usually have better social skills, persistence, and fine motor skills and, thus, integrate successfully in a gifted group with boys of higher intelligence. The book's second part addresses Landau's academic work in multiple languages and offers a critique that helps educators and mental health experts build gifted programs.