Parents find themselves in a position between school and home when it comes to the support for “giftedness” of their children and are thereby confronted with specific roles and school-based expectations of “doing good parent” (cf. Schwermann & Seitz 2023). Amplifying this, the German educational system can be seen as highly structured concerning the segregation of children in secondary schools on account of their developed habitus (cf. Helsper, Kramer & Thiersch 2014). The following study reverses the heavily school-based focus on parenthood in “gifted education” and turns to the perspectives of parents on talent promotion in schools. In accordance with the findings of the study, three different parental types were derived, showing that the central role of parents is to act as advocates for their children´s needs in school-based measures for talent promotion (cf. Schwermann, Rott & Kaiser 2023). The findings of the study have been obtained by a qualitative approach of reconstructive social research (cf. Döring & Bortz 2016), using twenty narrative interviews (cf. Nohl 2017) with parents at primary and secondary schools in Germany in 2021. The interviews took place at schools which participate in the nationwide project "Achievement Makes School" (2018-2023). In the data analysis, one interview of a parent forms a case to be interpreted. The main cases were selected on the basis of maximum and minimum variance until a theoretical saturation was reached. Thereby three different parental types of orientations and practices could be figured out, which shed a light on the role of parents in talent promotion. The data analysis was carried out using the documentary method (cf. Bohnsack 2017) and is completed at this point of the research process. Finally, the study results show that two of three derived parental types adapt to the belief system of “normal” and “special” children, whereby the specialization of “gifted” children becomes a heterotopia, a place outside the supposedly “normality” (cf. Böker 2022). The first type will use the term “giftedness” to gain access to special talent promotion for their child, whereas the second type resists the implied hierarchization by understanding children as different but equal. The third type assumes that their child is not comparable to anyone and does not fit into the constructed grid of “normal” and “special” - which glosses over negative aspects, like masking capital-related inequality. Nevertheless, all types have in common that their practices are seen as beneficial to the child´s well-being.

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