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Abstract

The article addresses the way in which the term eminence is used in this culture and in its educational system. Its use is defined as a characteristic of those persons who have achieved distinguished superiority and who protect and defend “high culture” and our intellectual legacy. The terms famous and renowned are reserved for athletes, pop singers, politicians, etc., who do the immediate and practical work of the society. The author questions whether gifted education in the public schools does not stress the practical at the expense of the less rewarded visual and performing arts and theoretical sciences that lead to eminence. She concludes that the primary commitment of the schools is of the development of intelligence, the practical; and, as a result, appears to be anti-intellectual, even while espousing humanist goals.

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The Symbolic Role of Eminence in the Education of Gifted Students

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