Abstract

Inspirational, encouraging and influential teachers play a significant role in the academic life of gifted and highly able students (Kronborg, 2010). Frequently, these students are affectively and cognitively more advanced than their age peers (Knopfelmacher & Kronborg, 2003), needing different educational provisions (Plunkett & Kronborg, 2011). Interacting with exemplary teachers contributes to the development of their talents. This study aims to identify inspiring secondary teachers for gifted students in selective school environments in Melbourne, to understand them and thei characteristics. Constructivist grounded theory is being used as a research design. Usually, in objectivist grounded theory studies theoretical framework is developed after completing all the analysis so that the researcher’s ideas are not influenced by extant theories (Glaser, 1998; Strauss & Corbin, 1990). From this logic, developing theoretical framework beforehand seems to be somewhat forbidden. However, this argument might be understood as an underestimation of the researchers’ ability to move between existing theories, research findings, and data analysis (Dunne, 2011). Constructivist grounded theory has been developed by Kate Charmaz (2006, 2014), and this flexible design highlights the idea of Sensitising Concepts as initial notions to guide the researcher’s interests and values. At this stage the list of sensitising concepts includes: flow (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), and crystallising experiences (Walters & Gardner, 1986), social environment (Gagne, 2010, 2013; Vygostky, 1980), and inspiration (Thrash & Elliot, 2003, 2004). As a consequence, this presentation is an incomplete declaration of my (initially forbidden) theoretical framework, which helps to clarify my biases, and to remain open with the emergent information.