Edward Elgar Publishing The Biological Turn in Education Policy: Navigating Minds

This book examines how concepts from the life sciences are reshaping contemporary understandings of education and learning. Scholars from diverse disciplines explore the historical roots and global spread of the ‘biological turn’ that has transformed how education is defined and administered, highlighting its promises and its risks. Contributors assess how biological reasoning applies to ideas of equity, potential and governance. They identify continuities between past biological rationalities, such as eugenics, and contemporary developments including educational genomics and neuroscience. Through its chapters, the volume examines how the biological turn in education has emerged, what drives it, and what its wide-ranging consequences may be, asking whether it marks a fundamental change in thinking or a reconfiguration of established ideas. Ultimately, the book advances research in this field, providing fresh insights into how biology is becoming intertwined with education’s social and political purposes. The Biological Turn in Education Policy is a key resource for scholars and students of education policy, comparative and international education, sociology and public policy and politics. The book’s analysis of the diffusion of global policy paradigms and the role of expertise and science in governance will also benefit policymakers in international organisations, national ministries and local authorities.