Genes, learning, and the classroom: insights and implications from educational genomics

This session will feature Dr Emma Meaburn (Birkbeck, University of London), and is titled– Genes, learning, and the classroom: insights and implications from educational genomics.

Understanding why some children struggle in school is a central goal for educational research. Large-scale genomic studies are starting to offer new insights by identifying robust links between DNA differences and educationally relevant traits such as cognitive skills, mental health, and years of schooling. These findings have culminated in the development of polygenic indexes (PGIs), which summarise thousands of tiny genetic influences into a single value. PGIs can account for a small but statistically useful amount of the differences we see between students in a population. In this talk, Emma will lay out the science behind PGIs and describe some of the ways in which they are being used as research tools to better understand the dynamic real-world relationships between nature (genes) and nurture (the environment). Longer-term, the hope is that this research might indirectly inform educators and education policy by, for instance, helping to understand the paths by which parents’ genes affect offspring risk for poorer educational outcomes. Emma will also discuss the important challenges that remain in the basic science and consider which are likely solvable. By focusing on the science in this way, the goal is to provide the framework needed to contextualize the next talk in this series, which will explore whether genetic information could have a more direct role in education.

This webinar comes from the Centre for Educational Neuroscience. This autumn, they have a fantastic lineup of speakers sharing their research each Thursday from 4–5pm.