Abstract:

Twice exceptional (2e) students are by some researchers defined as a group of students who “possess high ability in one or more talent domains along with one or more disabilities” (Foley-Nicpon & Assouline, 2020, 1615). In this presentation, we detail long-term perspectives on school from the point of view of a twice exceptional (2e) student and her guardians, based on data from an exploratory single case study, where we conducted semi-structured individual interviews with a female student (age ≈ 13 years) who had been identified as twice exceptional, as well as with her guardians. These results details the students’ social as well as educational situation from pre-school and onwards into her early years of primary school, and thus provides a long-term perspective on the social and educational situation of a twice exceptional student in Sweden. The results of this study thereby provide a more detailed view of how the educational situation of the student has developed and changed over time, as well as the family’s first encounters with an educational system which aims to be “a school for all” students, but which is not necessarily the most well-suited to meet the needs and preferences of twice-exceptional children.

This study is of importance since there is a lack of studies about twice exceptional (2e) students, even though many researchers in the field consider it a considerable group (cf. Assouline & Whiteman, 2004) with often unmet educational needs. In general, research about high ability, or gifted, students has increased in Sweden as of lately, but not as much focus has been given to 2e students. Not the least, there is a lack of studies that take a long-term perspective of the situation that 2e students are facing when meeting the educational system. Prior studies underline the importance of taking into account the perspectives of both 2e students and their guardians (e.g., Holmgren et al., 2023; Mun et al., 2021).

Keywords:

Gifted education, twice exceptionality, 2e, special needs education, social situation, education.