Peter Henderson

In this blog I explained why I think education experts – teachers, researchers and policy makers – should pay more attention to genetics. Hopefully you read that blog and came here to learn more.

Below is a brief reading list I have used to try to get an overview. It covers the basics of behavioural genetics, the link between genetics and educational outcomes, some interesting papers on implications for education and educational research, and useful twitter accounts and blogs. I am certainly no expert and I am mainly writing this blog in the hope that it will attract further reading recommendations (please tweet me @peterhenderson8).

TL;DR: If you only read one thing on genetics, Blueprint by Robert Plomin is very good but you must also watch this talk by Paige Harden.

Overviews

Blueprint by Robert Plomin (link). An accessible overview of the main issues which forcefully demonstrates that our genes matter. However, critics have argued that Blueprint overstates its case.

The Gene: An Intimate History by Siddhartha Mukherjee (link). An engaging overview of genetic science, its ugly history, and sci-fi future. Make sure you read the mind-boggling section on CRISPR.

What impact does genetics have on education outcomes?

Our understanding of the link between genetics and education is largely informed by findings from two types of research: twin studies and Genome-Wide Association Studies (GWAS). Blueprint contains a very accessible introduction to both.

Twin studies

Twin studies try to understand how differences in our genetics contribute to differences between us on outcomes like educational attainment. They work by comparing identical and non-identical twins. Khan academy has a nice introduction to these ideas. The Twins Early Development Study (https://www.teds.ac.uk/) at Kings College London is a large and influential twin study. It maintains an archive of papers using its data.

Genome-Wide Association Studies

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) examine the correlation between differences in the human genome (single nucleotide polymorphisms AKA “SNPs”, or “snips”) and human characteristics such as personality, height, and susceptibility to disease. Geneticists have started to use GWAS to create “polygenic scores” which count the SNPs that correlate with a particular characteristic. There is a polygenic score for educational attainment called EA3. If a person has a high EA3 then they have a larger number of the SNPs that correlate with high educational attainment. Debates about polygenic scores and how they are used are central to the debate about how genetic science should influence education.

Here is some further reading on GWAS and polygenic scores:

• The most recent GWAS on educational attainment is the EA3 study.
• The Social Science Genetic Association Consortium (SSGAC) produces FAQs on the cutting edge of social science GWAS, including the EA3 study. The SSGAC is a very cool collaboration between social scientists and medical researchers.
• GWAS have largely been carried out on subjects with European ancestry and their findings are not easily applicable to other populations. This paper reviews the problems caused by the lack of diversity in GWAS samples. This is not just an academic problem; it has concerning implications for social equalities if the results of GWAS are used to target interventions (i.e. “precision medicine”; “precision education”).

Implications for education and society

This is where it gets really interesting. Here are a few recent attempts to consider how education and society might change as our understanding of genetics develops.

Watch Paige Harden‘s thoughtful response to the ethical challenges posed by behavioural genetics. What does behavioural genetics mean for arguments about equity and discrimination? How can we avoid repeating the mistakes of the past? Paige is currently working on a book on genetics and social equality which sounds excellent.

This paper is an “adversarial collaboration” between Daphne Martschenko, Sam Trejo, and Ben Domingue. It provide a comprehensive review of the ugly history of genetic science and considers future risks.

This book chapter from Kathryn Asbury, Kaili Rimfield and Eva Krapohl considers the potential for “personalised education” and the practical and moral barriers.

This paper by H. Moriah Sokolowski and Daniel Ansari uses behavioural genetics to examine two educational mysteries: the persistence of the educational attainment gap and disappointing long-term effects of education interventions.

Robert Plomin has argued that genetic information (EA3) could be used to target a widen access to higher education. He has proposed a trial to test this idea. This work was recently covered in the Times.

This European Commission report is a nice introduction to both GWAS and potential applications of polygenic scores. The “personalised education” section on page 25 considers how people might react to knowing their polygenic score for educational attainment. Would knowing that you had a low EA3 be motivating or hampering? Could knowledge of polygenic scores lead to individuals becoming stigmatised?

It is important to state that all of the suggested readings on this blog concern the role of genetics in differences between individuals. They are not related to the role of genetics in group differences in educational outcomes. Unfortunately there is a pretty sordid history of attempted genetic explanations for racial inequality. This article provides a good rebuttal.

Implications for education research

Behavioural genetics also has implications for how we do education research.

This paper by Jeremy Freese describes possible uses of genetic information to improve social science research methods.

Education researchers are very interested in how the home learning environment affects learning. This paper by Sara Hart, Callie Little and Elsje van Bergen argues that causal claims about HLE and learning are confounded by genetic differences and suggests methods to deal with this.

A recent paper by Tim Morris, Neil Davies and others in the BERJ examined how genetic differences could confound value-added measures of school performance.

#FF

Some twitter suggestions:

• Kathryn Asbury – @KathrynAsbury1
• Paige Harden – @kph3k
• Eric Turkheimer – @ent3c
• Stuart Ritchie – @StuartJRitchie
• Daphne Martschenko – @daphmarts
• Ben Domingue – @bendomingue
• Philipp Koellinger – @PKoellinger

Some blog suggestions:

• https://geneticvariance.wordpress.com/ – Alex Young’s blog
• https://www.gnxp.com/ – Gene Expression. The author of this blog also runs a podcast.
• https://www.geneticshumanagency.org/gha/category/eric-turkheimer-gloomy-prospect-blog/ – Eric Turkheimer’s blog