Talent is an innate ability, which needs to be developed, therefore a simulative learning environment is of great importance. Lately, there has been a lot of talk about talented children in different school subjects. Talent is most commonly discussed when talking about art, music, physical education, and mathematics classes, but it is rarely connected to the social studies. This is the reason why this master thesis researches how class teachers adjust the social studies to the talented students in 4. and 5. classes of elementary school. The focus of the research was to establish which characteristics of a talent are recognized by the teachers, how teachers adapt the program to the talented students, which topics and activities are the most stimulating for the talented students, and how they learn at home and prepare themselves for the social studies.
The theoretical part of the master thesis focuses on the talented students; i.e. their characteristics, different sorts of talents, where talents come from, detecting and identifying talents, working with talented students in Slovenia, mistakes and dangers with detecting talented students, and talents in the social studies.
In the empirical part, qualitative approach and descriptive method were used. To get an insight into methods for working with talented students, interviews were carried out – with four class teachers teaching social studies at the elementary school and with eight students being in a process of identification or already being recognized as talented and who attend social studies. It was expected that the talented students are being treated like the other students who often shape classes and define difficulty level.
The results show that teachers indeed do not treat talented students any different than the other students. Students taking part in the survey do co-shape class, but they do not define the difficulty level. There were not established any special adjustments for the talented students. These students normally get additional work but not necessarily at a higher level. Talented students take part in different school competitions and extracurricular activities. For such students which are eager to learn, schools organize camps. The most important topic in the social studies is history. Students have a quiet and permanent place to learn. They are very independent and organized. Most of the students learn for the social studies through reading and brushing up the subject matter. They as well learn a lot by taking part in the class.
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