Advances in genetics will allow schools to better help children from disadvantaged backgrounds, a leading researcher has said.
However, Paige Harden, of the University of Texas at Austin, also warned that a lack of diversity in genetic research meant that only people of European ancestry would currently benefit from educational advances flowing from it.
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Speaking today at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai today, she outlined the findings of research into the relationship between pupils’ polygenic score - a measure of genetic potential - and the maths groups they were allocated to in American schools.
She said: “What we can see is that for students who have a very high polygenic score their chance of being tracked into an advanced maths class is much, much higher if they are in an advantaged high school versus a disadvantaged high school.
“At the same time, we can see that for children who have a low polygenic score, their chances of receiving that more intensive and more advanced maths education in the ninth grade is [lower in disadvantaged schools].
She said this showed there is “untapped potential” in pupils with high polygenic scores in disadvantaged schools.
She added: “At the same time, I think we can see a lot of room for growth for students who have low polygenic scores.
“In the same way that a teacher would see someone with an identified learning disability and not say ‘well, we need to give up on this child’s education’, but would rather say ‘what resources and support does this particular child need in order to maximise their chances in education’, we can think about genetic information in that same way.”
However, Prof Harden warned about the effects of a lack of diversity in genetic research.
She said people with European genetic ancestry make up 16 per cent of the global population, but 79 per cent of people who participated in genetic research.
“This means that any advantages that flow from genetic knowledge, any uses of personalised medicine, of progress in education, that proceeds from genomic research, right now all of those benefits are flowing directly to the most advantaged people in the globe, which are people from North America and people in Europe.”
Prof Harden told the audience that one challenge of genomic research was how to expand the global research base.
She warned: “If there’s any possibility that this [research] is going to be used in ways that advantage people that give them medical or educational benefits, right now that is only going to be working to the benefit of European-ancestry populations because the research doesn’t exist outside that.”
