Wicked Problems Abound: It’s Time to Harness the Power of Transformationally Gifted Girls’ Education

Abstract

Courageous and innovative individuals are needed urgently to work on the wicked problems and challenges of our modern world. This paper explores a critical solutions source, namely the education of transformationally gifted adolescent girls who “seek positively to change the world at some level – to make the world a better place” (Sternberg, 2020, p. 30). Altruism is the central drive of transformational giftedness. Recent research indicates that gifted adolescent girls have the dispositions, expertise, and abiding sense of hope-fullness needed to harness their core altruistic career-related values and high abilities to significantly impact the common good (Napier, 2020). Napier and Sternberg argue that transformational giftedness should be identified and nurtured in educational environments to benefit gifted adolescent girls’ self-actualisation and society at large. Recommendations are made for educational policy and practice to identify and nurture transformationally oriented gifted adolescent girls’ career trajectories.