Leadership experiences of gifted students: A meta-synthesis of qualitative studies

Abstract

This study employs a meta-synthesis method to holistically analyze qualitative research on the leadership experiences of gifted students from a multidimensional perspective. It examines approaches to leadership’s nature, its conceptualization, students’ experiences, conditions for emergence, limiting factors, and development recommendations. Following a systematic literature review across three databases (Scopus, Web of Science, and ProQuest Dissertations & Theses) and the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses process, five qualitative studies were included, reflecting an inclusion rate of just 0.48% that underscores the scarcity of qualitative research in this area. Thematic coding, cross-case, and interpretive synthesis were used for analysis. Findings reveal leadership is shaped by social-emotional skills, identity, culture, and educational opportunities, not just cognitive ability. Experiences oscillate between empowerment and vulnerability. While academic achievement, responsibility, and self-efficacy support leadership, its development is limited by low self-confidence, social anxiety, teacher expectations, inequality, and prejudice. Minority students particularly experience a pronounced burden of representation and invisibility. Fostering leadership in gifted students requires a multidimensional program integrating individual potential, social interaction, pedagogy, and cultural context. Theoretically, the synthesis extends developmental and relational models of leadership to the field of gifted education, showing that leadership talent is best understood not as a fixed individual trait but as a capacity co-constructed at the intersection of cognitive potential, social-emotional development, identity, and cultural context.