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Article
“The train has left the
station”: The arrival
of the biosocial
sciences in education
Daphne Martschenko
Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge,
Cambridge, UK
The 21st century is saturated with technological advancements that have given
rise to a number of scientific efforts aimed at better understanding ourselves.
While previously the debate might have been one of ‘nature’ versus ‘nurture,’ the
completion of the Human Genome Project in 2003 marked the beginning of the
‘postgenomic era.’ The conversation has since shifted toward one of ‘nature’ and
‘nurture.’ Human behavior is now increasingly studied in the common ground
between biology and sociology: the bio-social sciences. This area of research
includes fields such as neuroscience, epigenetics, and molecular genetics.
Examples of society’s new relationship with the biosocial sciences abound.
Today, easy-to-use tool-kits for under $100 from companies like 23andMe have
made genomic data more accessible than ever before (23andMe, n.d.). Researchers
are studying the interplay between epigenetics and cancer (Yegnasubramanian
et al., 2019) and the neuroscience of addiction (Humphreys and Bickel, 2018).
Actress Angelina Jolie announced her decision to have a bilateral mastectomy
after genetic testing revealed she had the BRCA1 gene mutation (Igoe, 2016).
The UK Biobank contains the health information, including DNA samples, of
Corresponding author:
Daphne Martschenko, Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, 184 Hills Road, Cambridge
CB2 1TN, UK.
Email: dmartschenko@uchicago.edu
Research in Education
2020, Vol. 107(1) 3–9
!The Author(s) 2020
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DOI: 10.1177/0034523720914636
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500,000 volunteer participants that are available for researchers (“UK Biobank,”
n.d.). The biosocial train has left the station and is embarking on a global journey.
However, this revolution is not just transforming the biomedical and healthcare
landscape; it is entering into education research. As the reader will find in this
Special Issue, the use of scientific ideologies to make sense of differences between
individuals and groups in and out of schools is not new; there is a long and bur-
dened history preceding 21st century biosocial scientific research (e.g. Evrie, 1868;
Galton, 1869; Jensen, 1968; Shockley, 1972). Nonetheless, new windows into the
study of human behavior and social outcomes are being opened, now possible due
to rapidly decreasing costs (National Human Genome Research Institute, n.d.).
These developments raise important social and ethical questions: Are the biosocial
sciences ushering in a new era of research in education? What does the onslaught of
data from the biosocial sciences mean for schools, teachers, and children from the
perspectives of both policy and practice?
As researchers turn toward more “molecularized” (Braun, 2007; Fullwiley,
2008; McGonigle and Benjamin, 2016; Rose, 2007), or physiological, explorations
of what makes us the same and what makes us different, I began to think about the
implications of these developments for education. The idea for this Special Issue
was born out of a symposium I organized at the 2016 American Educational
Research Association (AERA) annual meeting entitled Dystopian DNA?
Public Education, Genetics, and the Popular Imagination. The symposium brought
together multiple perspectives to look at the use of Science-informed arguments in
education. Dystopian DNA raised larger questions about the hold of historical and
new knowledge on the imaginations of educators and educational institutions and
the new conceptualizations of social inequality, identity, and policy that might
emerge – important questions that required further conversation. I realized that
the application of the biosocial sciences within education was far more expansive
than the symposium covered. The outlook is also not wholly dystopic – where
there is threat, there is also possibility. Where there is an ugly history, the future is
uncertain but not predetermined.
As such, the intention behind creating the Special Issue Education, Biosocial
Sciences, and the Popular Imagination is to expand the conversation started at
AERA. This collection looks at how biosocial sciences are used and could be
used within educational spaces and explores the threats and possibilities research
in this domain pose to equitable public education. The lens taken within this
Special Issue is a wide one, meant to provide a breadth of perspectives on a
growing number of biosocial applications within education. Through it all, this
Special Issue remains grounded in an awareness of the structural and oppressive
inequalities that have always defined our societies. Importantly, this collection
does not seek to universalize or legislate findings from the biosocial sciences.
Yet, it recognizes the gravitas increasingly affixed to the biosocial sciences and
the field’s hold on the popular imagination. By bringing attention to the place the
biosocial sciences is taking up in education, this Special Issue hopes to encourage
4Research in Education 107(1)
proactive and cross-disciplinary work that tackles difficult questions around
policy, practice, and equity.
This collection of works builds upon previous scholarship on biosociality
and education. It intends to further the conversation on the “reverberations, cel-
ebrations, repulsions, worries, concerns, excitement at new possibilities, joyful
inventions, [and] fears” (Gulson and Baker, 2018: 159) that come hand-in hand
with the uncertainty of the biosocial sciences. The application of biosocial research
within education practice and policy is catalyzed by the development and spread of
new biological rationalities in education that have generated a series of discourses.
New biological rationalities are transforming conversations about stress in
high-stakes education environments (Youdell et al., 2018), understandings of
mindfulness (Baker and Saari, 2018), and thoughts on how to enhance perfor-
mance of education systems (Williamson et al., 2018). The biosocial sciences are
not just changing the kinds of research we do in education or reframing
our approaches to education policy, they are shifting how we think about and
understand the student and the teacher and what it means to educate.
The content of this collection
The timely contributions in this Special Issue are international in focus and explore
the growing interface between the biosocial sciences and education. The issue
begins with papers that are more applied in nature and ends on a conceptual
note, leaving the reader with a sense of both the positive and negative possibilities.
Over the course of the Special Issue, the reader will get an appreciation for how
epigenetics, behavioral genetics and social genomics, sensing technologies, and
neuroscience are impacting upon education. It is my hope that this collection
also encourages readers to consider the social, ethical, political, and policy
implications of such developments. This collection stresses that careful ethical
consideration needs to be given to the application of the biosocial sciences in
education. Systems built on inequality and the dispossession of racially defined
and low-income people have been structured to repeat previous patterns and
grievances, proactive measures will need to be taken to resist their reoccurrence,
whether in new or familiar forms.
The Special Issue begins by studying the turn towards collecting biometric and
environmental data in education. Such a development has given rise to “smart
schools” that heighten regulation and monitoring in the educational environment.
In Relational architecture and wearable space: Smart schools and the politics of ubiq-
uitous sensation (Freitas, Rousell, and J€
ager, 2019), a collaborative team of educa-
tion researchers, critically analyze and re-imagine “the widespread development of
smart schools across the UK, many of which are embedded with complex sensor
networks that regulate learning environments through context-aware building man-
agement systems” (p. 10). Freitas et al. explore the implications of decentralized
sensor networks in learning environments by drawing upon a number of recent
projects in contemporary art, architecture, and interaction design. In doing so, the
Martschenko 5
authors elucidate a certain tension that is woven throughout much of this Special
Issue: the perils and promise of the biosocial. The authors show that the amassing of
biometric and environmental data raise key political and ethical questions about
privacy and surveillance but also highlight the potential to enhance somantic, social,
and environmental sensibility among young people.
As Freitas et al. demonstrate, the “nature–nurture” binary is dissolving in the
post-genomic biosocial era we find ourselves in today and altering our understand-
ings of education and what is possible in ways previously unimaginable. ‘DNA
Dreams’: Teacher Perspectives on the Role and Relevance of Genetics for Education
(Martschenko, 2019) looks at one proposed application of behavioral genetics in
education: precision education. Precision education constitutes a proposed educa-
tion system (Asbury and Plomin, 2013) in which genetic data are used to shape
students’ Individualized Education Plans. This paper casts its gaze on the
American educational system, an institution marred by racial and socioeconomic
inequality. Focusing on primary and secondary school teachers, the paper exam-
ines how developments in the field of behavioral genetics interact with teacher
perceptions of intelligence and seeks to capture teacher views on the role and
relevance of genetic data in their educational practice. While teachers saw promise
in the use of genetic data in education, they also harbored anxiety about equitable
application and expressed fear of misuse. These valid concerns contribute to the
host of ethical considerations raised in this paper for educators, policy-makers, and
researchers to consider.
Previous patterns and grievances that give rise to ethical considerations pertain-
ing to the biosocial sciences are partially rooted in the tendencies of individuals
and communities to understand themselves in relation to an “other” (Douglas,
1966). The practice of differentiation has historically been a blessing and a curse.
On the one hand individuals celebrate difference – the consumer genetics
movement is a prime example of the desire to understand one’s unique ancestral
background (e.g. 23andMe, .n.d.; New Life Genetics, n.d.). On the other, however,
is the use of “difference” to legitimize inequality and validate marginalization.
In his contribution, sociologist of education Martin Myers looks at an increasing
body of academic work using genetic studies of Roma. These genetic studies are
employed to try and understand the lives and histories of Roma. For instance,
Myers stresses that work in population genetics linking the descendants of the
Roma to the Indian subcontinent and research in molecular genetics on
common health issues in Roma communities such as obesity or high cholesterol
levels need “to be contextualised within the wide-ranging historical oppression of
Roma people” and the “denial of human rights and a lack of access to education”
(p. 55). An Inheritance of Exclusion: Roma education and the turn to biosocial
solutions considers (Myers, 2019) the possible application of these genetics studies
to educational interventions aimed at improving the educational outcomes of
Roma students. Myers concludes that a failure to recognize the wider historical
context will simply maintain centuries of racism and exclusion in and out of
schools.
6Research in Education 107(1)
Given the need for proactive measures to avoid the repetition of past injustices,
what should education researchers do to prevent the biosocial sciences from per-
petuating inequitable educational structures? In Epigenetics, education, and the
plastic body: Changing concepts and new engagements (Pickersgill, 2019), Martin
Pickersgill, the Wellcome Trust Reader in Social Studies of Biomedicine, calls for
“reciprocal, thoughtful, and critical exchange with bioscientists who seek to
address educational issues, or whose work is being enrolled by others to do so”
(p. 72). The paper is framed around an exploration of epigenetics and the produc-
tion of more plastic, or malleable understandings of the human body. Outside of
biomedicine, epigenetics and its accompanying perspective on plasticity is gaining
ground. One field in which it appears to be making headway is education.
Pickersgill draws upon biomedical and education-related texts that to varying
extents stand in conversation with each other to show the emergence of a budding
discourse between education and epigenetics. In order to achieve the ‘promise of
plasticity,’ Pickersgill highlights the need for open, critical, and socially responsible
engagement and communication, a message that lies at the heart of this Special
Issue.
All aboard
The reorientation to biological and physiological processes opens new avenues for
education researchers and alongside it new threats and possibilities for education
policy, educators, and students. In exploring practical applications, possible
applications, and the ensuing implications, this Special Issue holds a certain ‘tri--
focality,’ looking at the past, present, and future.
As the appeal of the biosocial sciences continues, researchers should avoid narrow-
ing their lens from a number of angles. First, employing a tri-focal perspective will
remain critical for those striving for the still-illusive aim of educational equity. Second,
within the biosocial sciences, researchers should avoid constricting their gaze to the
bio component of the bio-social. The biosocial sciences are interdisciplinary, encap-
sulating a number of fields of scientific inquiry that seem to offer new ways for think-
ing about, understanding, and addressing timeless issues in education.
Viewing each individual as unique and offering personalization could afford
many benefits to education systems that often times provide cookie-cutter
approaches that are a disservice to students. In other ways, however, the biosocial
sciences could encourage researchers to over-molecularize and build education
interventions or policies that see students as sets of dynamic physiological process-
es rather than beings informed and shaped by societies steeped in structural
inequality. More worrisome is the application of the biosocial sciences in a
world rife with racial and social inequality. A history of research abuse (Brandt,
1978) and the deployment of unsubstantiated arguments about the biological
nature of racial (Evrie, 1868) and socioeconomic (Buck v. Bell, 1927) inequality
means that cautious and proactive measures are needed to ensure today’s biosocial
research does not follow the poisoned paths of previous eras.
Martschenko 7
As this Special Issue reveals, the biosocial train is en route. It will be up to the
education research community to foster interdisciplinary and multi-discursive con-
versations that prevent these new technologies from obscuring ethical uncertainties
and reconstituting sociocultural assumptions. The biosocial sciences can be con-
tested and charged. Creating constructive avenues for communication that keep
equity in mind will mean talking together rather than apart. I intend this Special
Issue to invite more into the conversation. The biosocial train may have left the
station, but there is a long and uncertain journey ahead.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank the authors of this Special Issue for their contributions and David
Bright and Kalervo Gulson, editors of Research in Education, for all their support and for
providing this opportunity to serve as guest editor. Thanks also to the peer reviewers for
their detailed and engaging feedback. Finally, I would like to thank the American
Educational Research Association for hosting the 2016 symposium that planted the seed
for this Special Issue.
Declaration of conflicting interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, author-
ship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication
of this article.
ORCID iD
Daphne Martschenko https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9046-5893
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