The notion of underachievement seems often accepted uncritically at face value by educatorsand policy-makers alike. Few consider the origins of the terms and the culturalvalues motivating them. This chapter, therefore, aims at contextualizing how underachievement,and by extension, inevitably also overachievement and talent, are currentlyunderstood in educational settings to demonstrate that both definition and applicationare coupled with market oriented industry management strategies, and that these, inturn, are tied to current socioeconomic ideology and discourse. Individual considerationand empowerment by means of education are no longer favored values in society. Globalizedworld economy and the ideologies sustaining it, have made explicit demands onwhat education must be and do. The meaning and nature of both underachievement andoverachievement, therefore, have changed dramatically in a relatively short period oftime, prompted by policy changes based on a number of doubtful assumptions, all arguedto prompt both school systems and societal systems’ development into excellence. However,in scrutinizing research done on underachievement, overachievement, and talentsince the 1990s, this demonstrating how meanings and their underpinning values havediscretely changed, it is quite possible to conclude that it is perhaps better for most studentsand employees to remain unexcellent rather than to potentially sacrifice health andsanity being more or less forcefully assimilated into a culture of excellence.
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