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The Gifted Child Movement In New South Wales: Public Schools And The New Class, Sheldon Rothman

Dr Sheldon Rothman

This study examines the hypothesis that opportunity classes, special classes for gifted children in fifth and sixth grades in New South Wales schools, are available to the new class of intellectuals and technological intelligentsia. It is argued that the establishment of special classes was inextricably intertwined with the psychoeducational testing movement which held that intellectual ability can be quantified and that educational performance can be predicted with IQ test scores. This combination of identification and special educational preparation, the gifted child movement, has received renewed support in an era of attacks on public education, since it is seen by its …