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In this chapter, I will outline the labels of giftedness and underachievement and present the theoretical debates surrounding these labels. A historicist examination of these labels follows, highlighting how the gifted underachievement (GUA) label emerges through the negation of “giftedness.” Subsequently, I explore the concept of GUA and its negative connotations, stemming from the positive valuation inherent in the term “giftedness” and its implications for what is considered “normal.” This chapter also reviews perspectives on shifting the focus away from the individual within the current paradigm of labeling giftedness and explores insights from systemic thinking and symbolic interactionism (SI). The conclusion underscores the necessity of a symbolic interactionist perspective to address the gaps in research on the labeling of giftedness and underachievement. Finally, I propose a generic definition that can be used in GUA research in the light of SI.

This paper presents a case study of a school district–university partnership to co-design a Children’s Cabinet, a cross-sector initiative bringing together institutional and community leaders to address youth well-being in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. In a vibrant, immigrant-serving community in the Northeast United States, the partnership was initiated by district leaders in Spring 2021 after pandemic disruptions led to a youth mental health crisis.

Our descriptive, qualitative case study focuses on the structure and emerging design principles of the research–practice partnership, which established a Children’s Cabinet comprised of educational, government and community leaders along with researchers. From Spring 2021 through Spring 2024, we collected and analyzed member and youth interviews, ethnographic observations and artifacts from all meetings and process interviews with key partners.

We describe the structure of the partnership, including how researchers and district leaders collaborated on meeting facilitation and how researchers conducted and shared applied research. We then discuss three design principles that guided the work, including centering relationships, sustaining focus on key goals and embedding applied research.

As embedded research partners, our team is uniquely situated to narrate the nature and structure of the partnership and reflect on the design of our cross-sector initiative. Increasingly, universities are partnering directly with districts on school improvement initiatives. Our work shows how engaging in RPPs to bring together school, community and research partners can facilitate local leadership and collaboration to address complex, cross-sector goals such as increasing youth well-being.

The nexus of transport and tourism is critical to the 2021 Glasgow Declaration which sets out the net zero by 2050 goal for global tourism in the context of the Paris Agreement. Numerous small and medium-sized urban destinations (SMUDs) populated under one million are constrained by a limited capacity to manage visitor flows and increasing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. This paper aims to develop an analytical approach for urban practitioners, based on a case study in Taiwan, to identify the low-emission pathway and strategies for tourism passenger transport.

A GHG emissions assessment and scenario analysis were enabled by historical activity data from official sources and projected scenario data from the International Energy Agency. The scenarios were established based on the avoid-shift-improve framework for low-carbon transport.

To drive tourism passenger transport to a low-emission pathway compatible with the Paris Agreement goal, three low-carbon transport strategies, i.e. “Avoid,” “Shift” and “Improve,” shall be applied all together, with a focus on “improving” the efficiency of heavy-duty vehicles and rail transport. Meanwhile, alternative tourism and integrated transport policy packages could enhance demand-side management of visitors’ mobility, enabling the “avoid” and “shift” strategies.

Unlike most studies that have focused on large cities or small tourist areas, this paper addressed our knowledge gap regarding the low-emission pathway for tourism transport in numerous SMUDs compatible with a 1.5°C world. The proposed analytical approach can help policymakers assess effective strategies toward the targeted pathway.

The study explores the connection between foresight and Artificial Intelligence (AI) methods in a community within an environment of social instability in Colombia. It aims to contribute to research on aligning these methods for future-shaping, with the goal of enhancing shared governance, peer learning and collective learning among traditional decision-makers and local communities in emerging countries. The study seeks to foster a community of social actors who are likely to engage constructively in strategic dialogues. To enhancing shared governance and learning a hybrid model is synthesized, combining foresight and computational intelligence.

The case study explores the integration of computational intelligence and foresight through Gaston Bachelard's (Bachelard, 1936) phenomenology concept of ante-perception. The mathematical representation of the cone of scenarios provides a structured way to explore multiple future pathways, allowing communities to visualize and compare different trajectories and make informed decisions amid uncertainty. The model facilitates critical reflections on present assumptions, deepening insights into future scenarios. Ante-perception challenges traditional approaches to foresight by encouraging a break from established experiences, allowing for novel insights into possible futures. When enriched by computational intelligence, this reflective process is further strengthened by quantitative approach scenario modeling.

This research develops and tests a proposal that includes the logic and methods for constructing a mathematical representation of the cone of scenarios. This process, which is interactive and deliberative, is driven by anticipation and combines qualitative and quantitative approaches within a context of high uncertainty. By combining the critical reflection facilitated by ante-perception with the predictive power of computational intelligence, the model allows communities to transcend established thought patterns and explore innovative future possibilities. This integrative approach helps them envision and work toward social self-transformation.

The article aims to identify the creation of scenarios in contexts of high uncertainty, to respond to the needs of communities in emerging countries to manage change.

This article explores a novel approach to using foresight for address collective intelligence by developing a shared future vision in high-uncertainty contexts within local communities in emerging countries. The application of the hybrid model demonstrates that foresight is a key innovative social tool for developing long-term strategic reflection and planning for territories.

In developing long-term reflective processes, explaining phenomena, mechanisms and correlations requires the use of value judgments. This set of value judgments requires a representation that facilitates their treatment, helps to account for their behavior during the inference process to form a shared future vision. Consequently, ensuring the recognition of the opinions of local communities through participatory discussion spaces and their subsequent refinement, from a technical perspective, aims to illustrate the development of this social construction process. While similarities exist, differences add value through a transfer process, often subconscious. This process stimulates collective learning and builds capacities as knowledge is developed through inquiry, evaluation, interpretation and generalization.

This research provides a unique hybrid model that fosters collective learning and engagement by integrating local community perspectives with advanced computational intelligence methods. By facilitating both reflective and quantitative approach future-shaping, it offers a practical framework for addressing uncertainty while empowering communities to shape their own futures. It underscores the importance of recognizing local community views through bottom-up participatory discussions, thereby widening the stakeholder community to active engagement in addressing broader societal issues. The case study focuses on community collaboration in Puerto Gaitán, a Colombian municipality.

This paper posits the need for English language arts (ELA) teachers to foster students’ use of languaging about their relations with ecosystems and peers, leading to their engaging in collective action to critique and transform status-quo systems impacting the climate crisis.

This paper reviews the current theory of languaging theory and research that focuses on the use of languaging to enact relations with ecosystems and others and voice emotions for transforming communities and reducing emissions contributing to climate change.

This review of languaging theory/research leads to identifying examples of teachers having students critique the use of languaging constituting status quo energy and community/transportation systems, respond to examples of characters using languaging in literary texts, using languaging in discussing or writing about the need to address climate change, critiquing languaging in media promoting consumption, using media to interact with audiences and using languaging through engaging in role-play activities.

This focus on languaging in ELA classrooms is a unique perspective application of languaging theory, leading students to engage in collective, communal action to address the climate crisis.

As part of a national plan to govern professional and organizational development in Norwegian specialist healthcare, the country’s hospital clinics are tasked with constructing development plans. Using the development plan as a case, the paper analyzes how managers navigate and legitimize the planning process among central actors and deals with the contingency of decisions in such strategy work.

This study applies a qualitative research design using a case study method. The material consists of public documents, observations and single interviews, covering the process of constructing a development plan at the clinical level.

The findings suggest that the development plan was shaped through a multilevel translation process consisting of different contending rationalities. At the clinical level, the management had difficulties in legitimizing the process. The underlying tension between top-down and bottom-up steering challenged involvement and made it difficult to manage the contingency of decisions.

The findings are relevant to public sector managers working on strategy documents and policymakers identifying challenges that might hinder the fulfillment of political intentions.

This paper draws on a case from Norway; however, the findings are of general interest. The study contributes to the academic discussion on how to consider both the health authorities’ perspective and the organizational perspective to understand the manager’s role in handling the contingency of decisions and managing paradoxes in the decision-making process.