The influence of neuroscience

Abstract

Chapter 4 focuses on the first of the two developments under consideration, the influence of neuroscience. Using ideas from critical neuroscience, it explores how scientific developments have been presented as dramatic revolutionary alternations in how we understand human nature and potential, and how in turn these ‘insights’ have been translated into education. The turn to neuroscience in education has produced particular discourses about children, including an emphasis on the first three years as a vital period of development. The chapter considers the doubts and dangers of neuroscience and the critique from researchers in Early Childhood Education especially, before considering the attractiveness of the field, and the power of the image of the brain scan. These developments are related to discourses of ability and inequalities in education through discussion of how a focus on the brain facilitates a conception of ability as biological, and how discourses of damaged brains present in policy re-inscribe conceptions of the brain as determined by background. It is argued that neuroscience as culturally constructed serves as a biopolitical frame for understanding different children’s abilities and usefulness.