ERIC Number: EJ1101670
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2016
Pages: 24
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0268-0939
EISSN: N/A
Softly, Softly: Genetics, Intelligence and the Hidden Racism of the New Geneism
Gillborn, David
Journal of Education Policy, v31 n4 p365-388 2016
Crude and dangerous ideas about the genetic heritability of intelligence, and a supposed biological basis for the Black/White achievement gap, are alive and well inside the education policy process but taking new and more subtle forms. Drawing on Critical Race Theory, the paper analyses recent hereditarian writing, in the UK and the USA, and highlight a strategy that I term "racial inexplicitness"; this allows hereditarian advocates to adopt a colorblind façade that presents their work as new, exciting and full of promise for all of society. The paper is in two parts: the first exposes the racism that lies hidden in the small print of the new geneism, where wildly misleading assertions about genetic influences on education are proclaimed as scientific fact while race-conscious critics are dismissed as ignorant ideologues. The second part of the paper sets out critical facts about the relevant science, including the difference between the mythic and real meaning of heritability; fundamental problems with the methodology of twin studies; the little-known history of IQ test score manipulation; and the continuing use of a stylistic approach that Howard Gardner characterized as "scholarly brinkmanship."
Descriptors: Genetics, Intelligence, Intelligence Quotient, Racial Bias, Nature Nurture Controversy, Achievement Gap, Racial Differences, Educational Policy, Critical Theory, Race, Misconceptions, Twins, Research Problems, Research Methodology, Scores, Foreign Countries, Racial Discrimination, Scholarship, Scientific Methodology, Heredity, Discourse Analysis
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Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Evaluative
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: N/A
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: United Kingdom; United States
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A