2.3.4 Public Images of Gifted Programs in China: Analysis of Chinese News Reports on Gifted Education

As an indispensable component of gifted education, much attention has been paid to gifted programs, especially to their functionalities and effects, as well as the gender and racial inequalities. However, only a few studies have examined the public images of such programs. In this current study, a total number of 1,486 news reports published in Chinese newspapers during 1978-2015 were gathered containing the keyword Special Class for the Gifted Young. According to the significant variation among the distribution of all reports, the whole time-interval was therefore divided into three periods: 1978-1999, 2000-2007, and 2008-2015. Semantic network analysis and content analysis were applied to uncover the public images of SCGYs from news reports. Our analysis on the major communities found in the semantic network revealed that there existed four different images of gifted programs in Chinese public opinion: “successful graduates”, “early ripe, early rot”, “superb intelligence”, and “all-around development”. To better reflect the correlations between different images, a Pearson correlation analysis was performed on the reports who had portrayed at least one of four images. Results show that the image of “successful graduates” is significantly positively related to its opposite, the image of “early ripe, early rot” (r = 0.189, p < 0.001), which indicates the complex attitudes towards gifted programs in Chinese society. The positive correlation between “early ripe, early rot” and “superb intelligence” (r = 0.145, p = 0.002) suggests the existence of the stereotype of “Mad genius” in common beliefs. The two images “superb intelligence” and “all-around development” are significantly negatively related to each other (r = -0.370, p < 0.001). Such a correlation, coupled with the decline and increase in frequency of the two images over the years, suggests that the image of “superb intelligence” is being replaced by “all-around development” in the public images of gifted programs. It was also obvious that the number of neutral reports about SCGYs increased on a large scale while the proportions of both positive and negative reports decreased. Besides, the rise and fall of different images show how the public opinions of gifted programs change over time, possibly influenced by both institutional interventions and culture shifts.

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