Concepções de professores das escolas públicas e privadas da cidade de Manaus/AM sobre altas habilidades/superdotação

Abstract

This work has as goal the understanding of teachers' conceptions about high abilities/giftedness and the aspects highlighted by them as hindering the recognition of these students in the school context. On such purpose, the general target of this study was: to understand the concepts that teachers have in mind about high abilities/giftedness and the aspects they identified and ranked as the most relevant obstacles for students with this developmental condition to be recognized in the school environment. As specific targets, we indicate the following ones: (1) To recognize in the scientific literature “who are” the persons with indicating factors for high abilities/giftedness and the aspects that can influence their recognition in the school context; (2) To identify teachers' knowledge about the characteristics of students with high abilities/giftedness and about the factors related to their recognition in the school context; (3) To analyze teachers' conceptions about high abilities/giftedness and how they can influence its recognition in the school context. In this research we studied eleven teachers from public and private schools in the city of Manaus/AM. Methodologically, we decided to carry out a descriptive field research with a qualitative approach, based on the historical-dialectical materialism method. An online questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection, with open and closed questions and, in order to analyze data resulting from such collection, the content analysis method has been proceeded. It was detected as one of the great challenges existing in the school environment, the misconceptions in teachers' thinking for identifying High Abilities/Giftness – which need to be reviewed and redefined in order to be used as auxiliary tool for identifying students with High Abilities/Giftness.