“It’s an appealing idea: the notion that understanding the learning brain will tell us how to maximise children’s potential, bypassing the knotty complexities of education research. But promises to replace sociological complexity with biological certainty should always be treated with caution. Hilary and Steven Rose are deeply sceptical of claims that neuroscience can inform education and early intervention policy, and deeply concerned about the use of such claims to support neoliberal agendas. They argue that focusing on the brain encourages a focus on the individual divorced from their social context, and that this is easily aligned with a view of poor achievement as a personal moral failing, rather than a practical consequence of poverty and inequality.”
