MIND, BRAIN, AND EDUCATION What Can the Study of Genetics Offer to Educators?

ABSTRACT—This article explores the potential contribu-tion of modern genetic methods and findings to education. It is familiar to hear that the “gene ” for this or that behav-ior has been discovered, or that certain skills are “highly heritable. ” Can this help educators? To explore this ques-tion, we describe the methods used to relate genetic varia-tion to individual differences in high-level behaviors such as academic skills and educational achievement. These meth-ods include twin studies and genome-wide association stud-ies. We address the key question of what genetic data imply about the ability of educators to optimize educational out-comes for children across the range of abilities. Researchers investigating the genetics of behavior face a challenge. Broadly speaking, they have discovered that many cognitive abilities, and indeed educational achievement itself, are highly heritable. That is, many of the differences between children in their cognitive skills and their edu-cational performance appear to be of genetic origin. Yet when genetics researchers interact with educators, the key message (which we endorse here) is that the discovery of genetic effects should not be taken to imply that these outcomes—how good a child’s cognitive skills will be, how well he or shewill do at school—are inevitable or determined by one’s genetic make-up. Genetic effects may reduce or even disappear if the environment is changed (in this case, the environment of the classroom, the broader educationa