Talented Teenagers: The Roots of Success and Failure

Talented Teenagers is a fascinating and absorbing examination of what makes adolescents tick: what roles personality traits, family interactions, education, and the social environment play in a young person\'s motivation to develop his or her talent. Vivid descriptions in the students\' own words bring the material to life. Parents, teachers, psychologists, and counselors will find in these pages concrete information abou the conditions that foster the cultivation of mental abilities in adolescence, for both the gifted and the average student.

Acknowledgments; 1. Introduction; Part I. Talented Teens: 2. What is talent?; 3. How the study was conducted: methods and procedures; 4. What are talented teenagers like?; 5. How talented teenagers live; Part II. The development of Talent: 6. Fields and domains of talent in adolescence; 7. The experience of talent; 8. How families influence the development of talent; 9. Schools, teachers, and talent development; Part III. The Cultivation of Talent: 10. Commitment to talent and its correlates; 11. Cultivating talent throughout life; 12. What have we learned?; Appendixes; References; Index.

‘The most significant study of talent development to appear … [in] almost a decade … It is must reading for anyone wanting to grasp how the promise of youth converts to the triumphs of maturity.’ Contemporary Psychology

‘The result of an extensive five-year study, this pioneering book examines a group of gifted teenagers in an effort to understand the loss of motivation and diminution of talent that takes place during this troublesome period.’ The Readers’ Catalog Bulletin

‘Written in a comprehensible reading style, the book is well organized with clear chapter summaries.’ Choice

‘Thorough and well documented, Talented Teens is particularly valuable in that its message is applicable to all teenagers, not just to those who are exceptionally talented.’ Teacher Magazine

‘For a society concerned about survival, no issue is more important than the cultivation of its talented young, no outcome more devastating than the loss of talented individuals. Once again Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi and his colleagues demonstrate that well-crafted social science can shed new light on such crucial issues.’ Howard Gardner, Harvard University