Giftedness is a combination of above-average abilities and some other exceptional personality traits that can lead to exceptional achievements under appropriate conditions. Research shows that the personal development of a gifted child runs differently than with his peers. Personality mismatch or asynchronous development can occur when an individual with his cognitive abilities greatly exceeds the limit of his chronological age and remains in his emotional and social development at the level of his chronological age. For this reason, the problem of social inclusion of gifted pupils at school is professionally interesting, since on the basis of recognition of the social and emotional characteristics of gifted pupils we can work accordingly professionally; we support them or formulate appropriate intervention strategies. Social relations have a significant impact on pupils and their learning success. Children's development, however, depends not only on his cognitive and physical abilities, but the environment, in which the child lives, grows and develops also, plays an important role.
The main purpose of the master's thesis was to find out how gifted pupils are socially accepted in the classroom, whose personality traits have the greatest impact on social inclusion, how they are perceived by classmates and how gifted pupils see themselves in the classroom. My intention was also to investigate whether the environment in which pupils derive plays an important role in the described social context. Last but not least, I was interested in how class teachers promote the social inclusion of gifted pupils and what their behavior is in the cases of observed social exclusions of gifted pupils. The survey included 263 pupils from 2 city primary schools in eastern Slovenia (of which 49 gifted pupils) and 242 pupils from 3 rural primary schools in eastern Slovenia (of which 49 gifted pupils) from grade 6 to 9, and their class teachers. The pupils filled out a questionnaire of sociometric testing, the class teachers filled out a questionnaire for class teachers, and gifted pupils completed a class tree test. The results showed that most gifted pupils have a middle sociometric status, some have a high sociometric status, and a very small proportion have a low sociometric status, which indicates that gifted pupils are generally well received in the classroom both during classes and during breaks and in their free time and are not socially excluded, as confirmed by their class teachers. For the characteristics of gifted pupils, both class teachers and classmates pointed out several positive and negative characteristics, among which communication, sociability, friendliness, rich imagination, hard work and readiness to help prevail. We did not find any major differences between gifted pupils from urban and rural schools in the survey.
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