Peter Henderson

I have to admit I am a bit nervous about this blog. Sure, it’s my first blog – every first-time blogger must get jitters before clicking “publish”. But my nerves are much worse because I am writing about that classic education taboo: genetics. Even worse, I am going to argue that this taboo should be lifted. It’s important that we, in education, start paying more attention to findings in genetic science.

It is easy to see why this taboo has emerged. History provides many examples of genetic science being used to justify discrimination, hatred and violence.

However, avoiding discussion of genetics does not protect us against repeating these mistakes. It makes us much more vulnerable. It could also mean we miss potential benefits, especially for our understanding of how children learn and develop.

So what are these benefits and how can education experts help avoid repeating past horrors? Here are three reasons to learn more about genetics.

Understanding genetics is important if you want to understand how we learn

It is becoming increasingly difficult to avoid the growing evidence that genetics has an impact on how we learn. Bear with me, this is going to require a brief diversion into research methods.

A lot of the evidence we have about the relationship between genetics and education comes from twin studies. Twin studies try to understand why humans are different from each other: is it our genetics or our environments?

Twin studies work by comparing identical twins (who share 100% of their DNA) and fraternal or non-identical twins (who share 50%). If genetic differences are a powerful influence on the differences between people in a trait (say, height) then identical twins would be much more similar to each other than fraternal twins. If genetic differences have no impact, then identical twins would be no more similar than fraternal twins.

Scientists have used this technique to estimate the impact of genetic differences on educational attainment. In his useful introduction to this science, Blueprint, Robert Plomin describes twin studies that estimate that 60% of the differences in educational attainment are caused by differences in our genetics. This means that 40% is caused by differences in our environments.

It is striking that such a powerful influence on human development has received so little attention from educationalists. This research should be fundamentally interesting to those of us thinking about education.

It could lead to radical changes

This is not just a dry, academic debate. Scientists are now arguing that an understanding of genetics can help us to teach better.

Describing these ideas requires another go at explaining some research methods. This time it’s the Genome-Wide Association Study (GWAS).

GWAS look at how differences in the human genome (single nucleotide polymorphisms AKA “SNPs”) predict differences in traits like educational attainment. Geneticists have started to use GWAS to create “polygenic scores”. Polygenic scores count up how many of the SNPs that predict a trait an individual has. The polygenic score for educational attainment is called EA3. If you have a high EA3 then you have a larger number of the SNPs that predict high educational attainment.

EA3 predicts c.11-13% of the differences in how long people stay in education and a similar proportion of the variance in GCSE results. Having a high EA3 does not guarantee that someone will excel academically; the relationship is only predictive, not deterministic.

Some geneticists, including Robert Plomin, argue that polygenic scores can be used to target educational interventions. Pupils with low EA3 could be targeted with additional catch up support. Pupils with high EA3 could be provided with interventions that support them to get to university.

Educationalists might decide to support this work or might decide to oppose it; in this blog I am not going to argue for a particular response (I might write another blog on that!) But I am going to argue that society’s approach to these issues will be much better if education experts pay closer attention to proposals like Plomin’s. We cannot leave the hard thinking about policy and practice to the geneticists.

We must avoid the mistakes of the past

Education experts must play a key role in ensuring the ethics of any attempts to use genetic information. The risk that this science leads to damaging policy is real.

There are many historical examples of genetic information being used to justify harmful ideas. Our thoughts might immediately go to Nazi Germany here, but eugenic ideas were initially developed amongst scientists much closer to home in the UK.

We cannot stay safe by pretending that genetic science does not exist. Ignoring it will only allow more space for the bad ideas to flourish.

It is important to recognise that the science does not inevitably lead us to adopt bad ideas. The science just attempts to describe the world as it is. It is up to us to decide how to think and what to do.

Our current understanding of genetics is perfectly compatible with a modern, progressive, humane politics. We need to ensure that it is these values that govern our engagement with the science and inform any response.

I hope to expand on these themes in future blogs. For now, I will end by saying: yes, genetic science does provoke challenging ethical questions. But we will be much better equipped to make them if education experts understand and take part in the debate.

So, what now?

I think education would be well served if just a fraction of the people working on “edtech” spent their time thinking about the implications of genetic science. Genetic research is progressing at a bewildering rate. We should be better prepared to deal with its challenges.

Hopefully this blog has you left you wanting more information. If so, here’s a reading list.