Credit: Metamorworks via Adobe.

26 July 2024

By David Scott and Sandra Leaton Gray

This blog post is Part 3 of a series relating to our newly published book: Intelligence, Sapience and Learning: Concepts, Framings and Practices.

A number of claims about human intelligence are made by the neurobiological community. The first of these is that the brains of some people seem to be more efficient than those of other people. In addition, a claim is made that specific genes have been identified which generate cellular properties associated with intelligence. These cellular properties have been found to be more in abundance in people who have been shown to be more intelligent. (more…)

Sir Francis Galton in 1912 (left) and Sir Cyril Burt (right). Public domain via Wikimedia Commons.

25 July 2024

By Sandra Leaton Gray and David Scott

This blog post is Part 2 of a series relating to our newly published book: Intelligence, Sapience and Learning: Concepts, Framings and Practices.

Sir Francis Galton (1822-1911) and Sir Cyril Burt (1883-1971) were two pioneers of differential psychology who had close connections to UCL and IOE respectively. They worked at a time when a theistic philosophy in education was on the decline, and the new discipline of Psychology was in the ascendancy. The lives of Galton and Burt provide us with a cautionary tale about the dangers of working unchallenged in the field of science, with little accountability. (more…)

Credit: Quarta via Adobe.

24 July 2024

By David Scott and Sandra Leaton Gray

We have just published a book about some key educational concepts, with the title: Intelligence, Sapience and Learning: Concepts, Framings and Practices. These concepts are a central consideration for educators at IOE or at least we feel that they should be. In a companionate book – Women Curriculum Theorists: Power, Knowledge and Subjectivity – we looked in a similar way at the relations and connections between the concepts and practices of ‘woman’, ‘learning’ and ‘curriculum’. Social categories of gender, race, religion, dis-ability, sexuality and class are other examples of key life-defining concepts. Our new book seeks to shed light on the workings of these social categories because a proper examination of them is an essential starting point for understanding how the world and objects in that world are arranged and ordered. (more…)