How Can We Teach Genetics for Social Justice?

Abstract

Ever since the publication of Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, biologists have accepted that inherited variation plays a central role in the evolution of characteristics exhibited by organisms. This means that just about everything of interest about humans has an inherited component. This is true of such educationally significant factors as general intelligence, reading ability and examination success, just as it is of such standard school science topics as eye colour, single-locus medical variants (sickle-cell anaemia, cystic fibrosis, etc.) and height. However, the importance of genetics for educationally significant factors is easy to both misunderstand and overstate, and there is a risk that teaching about genetics in this area might have the opposite effect from what is intended, reinforcing misconceptions about genetic determinism and so retarding, rather than advancing social justice. I argue that the general public has not been well-served by much of the genetics they were taught while in school. Done well, school genetics teaching can not only provide students with a good understanding of inheritance, it has the potential to advance social justice. Such education can help students better understand issues to do with heritability, the historical misuses of genetics and the limitations of genetic determinism.