Neuroscience and Education – an Incompatible Relationship

Abstract

To date, there has been little opposition to the growing inf luence of cognitive neuroscience in education from the education profession itself. However there is growing criticism from the fields of psychology and philosophy. This paper aims to summarize the central arguments found in literature critical of the claims made by cognitive neuroscientists who advocate its potential to improve education. The paper is organized around three sections which draw together assessments from psychology, philosophy and sociology of education. The first, "Brain, Mind and Culture," lays out the general argument against neuroeducation and evaluates two common assumptions made by advocates of neuro-education: that there is a causal relationship between brain and mind and that learning is a central tenet of education. The second section, "Promises and Problems," critically considers an example of neuro-educational research and then goes on to discuss how neuro-education has detrimental consequences for two necessary conditions of liberal subject-based education; disciplinarity and pedagogic authority. The final section, "Discourses of Risk, Vulnerability and Optimal Outcomes," considers wider sociological literature to locate neuroeducation within its contemporary cultural context. The paper concludes with a summary of the main philosophical and moral objections to neuro-education.

The Persistence of Neuromyths in the Educational Settings: A Systematic Review

“…The fields of neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and their possible implications in education have flourished in universities, publications, and researchers, examples being the Brain, Neuroscience Special Interest Group within the American Education Research Association or the interfaculty initiative called Mind, Brain and Behavior (MMB), launched in 1993 by Harvard University (Schwartz, 2015). As a consequence of a logical evolution (or scientific revolution), since 1999, the OECD has had a Neuroscience and Education program, as well as other institutions, such as Cambridge University, East Normal University in Shanghai (Carew and Magsamen, 2010), the University of California, and Oxford University (Cuthbert, 2015). Moreover, more recently, the Human Brain Project is the most substantial scientific project ever funded by the European Union (Kandel et al, 2013).…”

“…Even though the emerging neuroeducation seemed to be received with enthusiasm, it was not without controversy and skepticism (Cuthbert, 2015) and this "gap" has always been present as a maximum representative of the distance between sciences, neurosciences, and education (Hardiman et al, 2012;Howard-Jones, 2014). Likewise, specific neuroimaging technology uses have been labeled as premature for educational research (Loftus et al, 2017).…”

What Should Schools Teach?

“…In addition to the centrality of the curriculum, there is a recognition that the profession needs to regain public authority, which, for various reasons, has been weakened in certain circles. At present, means of improving the authority of teachers, or the behaviour of pupils, are more commonly sought in research, which aims to emulate the language, criteria and methods borrowed from the natural sciences, and statistical analysis in particular (Sehgal Cuthbert, 2015;Smeyers, 2016). Statistical analysis is assumed to be a gold standard of verification, as it underpins so much of the theoretical work garnered through scientific experimentation (as the chapter on physics demonstrates).…”

Evidências sobre neuroética e neuroeducação: Uma revisão integrativa

“…Também houve críticas à neuroeducação no sentido de acometer o valor individual da liberdade, pela previsibilidade e generalização das ações, limitando esforço educacional (Cuthbert, 2015). Houve, ainda, crítica sobre a neurologização da educação, substituindo um processo anterior de psicologização, demonstrando que sozinhas não são autossuficientes (De Vos, 2015).…”