Abstract: Researchers have indicated that the cultural context children grew up in has a profound impact on the way giftedness is perceived, identified and developed. One significant feature that emerged from the Chinese literature is the notion that Chinese parents’ theories and practices of human behaviour are deeply rooted in the Confucian tradition. At the most basic level, they believe that every child is gifted and sought to maximize their potential. From this belief, the Confucian cultural tradition emphasizes on a learning process that encourages hard work, perseverance and self effort. The richness of one’s cultural origins and contexts can affect and determine children’s values and attitudes which can be conducive to talent development. These cultural values and beliefs affect the way parental perceptions of giftedness and their parenting style, which in turn impact on the way children acquire practicing habits and their motivation to be skilful in their musical ins
trument. It is, thus, important that cultural perspectives be explored in the process of assessing talent growth, especially in our increasingly pluralistic society. Singapore is a multiethnic and multicultural country with richly diverse cultures of the Chinese, Malay, Indian and other racial groups. This study examined the role of Chinese cultural perspectives influencing the musical development of a musically gifted adolescent in Singapore of Chinese descent. Gagné’s Differentiated Model of Giftedness and Talent (DMGT; 1985, 2003) was adapted as a conceptual model, and the preliminary surveys and interview protocols for both the parents and adolescent were designed using the adapted Gagné’s model as a guide. The surveys were administered to gain demographic and background information on the parents and adolescent and the open-ended interviews were used as the primary source of data. The data collected was interpreted and analysed for coding to identify the key statements from the descriptions of the parents and adolescent. The key statements were subsequently categorized into common themes that represented the cultural themes that facilitated her musical development. Four common themes emerged as important cultural values that contributed to the musically gifted adolescent’s musical development: (1) believing in the “gift”, (2) cultural expectations, (3) learning and persistence, and (4) the concept of ‘xiao’ “孝顺”(filial piety). The findings suggest that cultural perspectives can hold diverse meanings within and between multicultural societies such as in Singapore. Therefore, the powerful interplay of factors affecting talent development cannot be fully understood without taking cultural traditions and values into consideration given the diversity of the societies today. To this end, the findings call for parents, music teachers and music programme administrators to understand the musically gifted child’s performance, in part, in relation to the culture in which he or she was raised and customise identification tools, developmental strategies, and assessments that will capitalize on each child’s strengths and level of giftedness. It is also hoped that the findings of this study will provide basic theoretical grounds for further research in understanding the role of cultural perspectives in the
talent development process of musically gifted individuals.
