Constructions of Neuroscience in Early Childhood Education

Michel Vandenbroeck, Jan De Vos, Wim Fias, Liselott Mariett Olsson, Helen Penn, Dave Wastell, Sue White

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781315445106
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book explores and critiques topical debates in educational sciences, philosophy, social work and cognitive neuroscience. It examines constructions of children, parents and the welfare state in relation to neurosciences and its vocabulary of brain architecture, critical periods and toxic stress.

The authors provide insight into the historical roots of the relationship between early childhood education policy and practice and sciences. The book argues that the neurophilia in the early childhood education field is not a coincidence, but relates to larger societal changes that value economic arguments over ethical, social and eminently pedagogical concerns. It affects the image of the child, the parent and the very meaning of education in general.

Constructions of Neuroscience in Early Childhood Education discusses what neuroscience has to offer, what its limitations are, and how to gain a more nuanced view on its benefits and challenges. The debates in this book will support early childhood researchers, students and practitioners in the field to make their own judgements about new evolutions in the scientific discourse.

1

Introduction: Constructions of truth in early childhood education

A history of the present abuse of neurosciences

Michel Vandenbroeck

This is not about neuroscience. Rather, it is about how neurosciences have been used or misused – often by scholars and policy makers who are not neuroscientists – in the constructions of Truth about the early years. It critically deals with the impact of the discourse, which is inspired by these Truth constructions, on how we think about children; on how we think about the relations between families and the state; and on how we think about the very meaning of education in general and of early childhood education in particular.

I deliberately write Truth with a capital T. In doing so, I wish to highlight that Truth, as I use the concept here, is not an objective fact, but a construction, a way of seeing, and thus – inevitably – a way of not seeing (Burke, 1984). It needs to be clear that the objective of this chapter – and thus of this book – is neither to criticise the claims made by neuroscience, nor to amend the progress that neuroscientists have made in understanding how the brain develops and works, progress that is illustrated by the contribution of Wim Fias further in this book. Neither has this introduction any intentions to criticise the people who call themselves neuroscientists nor the scientific methods they use. Nevertheless, the intention is to offer a critical look at how the neurosciences are popularised for advocacy reasons, and how brain sciences are used to make political claims (about what equal opportunities mean, for instance); or how they are misused, narrowing the meaning of early childhood education (as a machine for early learning, for instance) and parenting (as a series of skills, for instance). This book also aims to offer a critique on how this so-called abuse of neurosciences has influenced our understanding of poverty (as a result of educational poverty and thus intergenerational, rather than as the result of an unequal distribution of material resources and other goods). Or, as Helen Penn argues in her chapter, how it has obscured the discussion on poverty.

I also wish to criticise how the neurosciences are used to shape early childhood education as a commodity and an investment of which we expect an economic return. And, most of all, it criticises how these Truth claims have become so dominant that it is now difficult to look at children and early years’ policies outside of this dominant paradigm. In sum, the aim is to criticise how in a certain socio-political context, a specific form of Truth about early childhood emerges, how the use of science plays a crucial role in such constructions, and how these regimes of Truth – in turn – also shape specific power relations that render children and parents into objects of intervention. As Jan De Vos explains in his chapter, brainification and digitalisation may profoundly change our perceptions on the very essence of education.

Eventually, I also aim to criticise the democratic deficit of such Truth constructions. In that sense, this introductory chapter is a contemporary illustration of the much older knowledge-power paradigm that was studied by Michel Foucault from his early work on dominant discourses (1971) to his later and more subtle work on the construction of the knowledge of the self (Foucault, 1993, 2001a).

A short paradigmatic note

The central Foucauldian question is not “what is power”, but rather “where does it come from” and “how does it operate”. Power, for Foucault, is less repressive than it is productive (Deleuze, 1985):

One needs to acknowledge that power relations produce knowledge (and not only because they favour knowledge for its practical use), that power and knowledge are mutually linked, and that there is no power relation without the construction of a field of knowledge, nor is there knowledge that does not suppose and construct power relations (Foucault, 1975, p. 36., translation by Vandenbroeck).¹

Power produces educational practices by determining how problems are constituted, how people are classified and what are considered appropriate ways to shape behaviour (Moss et al., 2000). Popkewitz (1996) argued therefore that pedagogy is a specific site, which relates political rationalities to the capabilities of the individual. This is very much in line with the view of Paulo Freire (1970, p. 152) who stated: “The parent-child relationship in the home usually reflects the objective cultural conditions of the surrounding social structure.” What these authors refer to is that what we believe to be the Truth about early childhood education is always contingent with the wider social and political context. We need to analyse how, historically, early childhood education has been framed as a solution to a socially constructed problem (Vandenbroeck et al., 2010). Visions about what is good for children, what are parental responsibilities, when states need to interfere, and what is the very meaning of early childhood are indeed not a-historical, and neither are the sciences that inform them. As a result, it is important to understand the constructions of neuroscience in early childhood education in their historical dimensions. This calls for a genealogical approach, meaning, according to Foucault (2001a, p. 1493):

I start from how a problem is presented in the present and try to make the genealogy of it. So what I try to do is to make the history of relations between thought and truth, a history of thoughts, in the sense that it constitutes a history of truths.²

As Escolano (1996) claimed in a seminal paper on a hermeneutical approach of the history of education, this stance asks for an evaluation of the internal coherence of the organisation of data and discourse and their external coherence with the social context and with other concordant or discordant stories. This introductory chapter will very briefly do so for two periods in the history of early childhood education: the early twentieth century and the constructions of prophylaxis and eugenics; and the post–World War II period with the constructions of attachment and developmental psychology, before turning to the present and the constructions of neuroscience. So, once again, when we look at – for instance – the use of prophylactic knowledge gathered by Pasteur, Koch or Lister at the turn of the previous century or the theories of Bowlby and Gesell after World War II, the aim is not to challenge this knowledge or criticise the validity of the claims that were made. Nor do I wish to make a judgement on their intentions. Rather the aim is to contribute to our understanding of how, in a specific socio-political context, these sciences became dominant and how they were shaped and contributed to shaping power relations in the field in the early years. In so doing, I hope to shed some light on change and continuity in the present era of neuroscientific constructions that dominate early childhood discourses.

To warrant, for the country, a strong and beautiful race³

The first period we briefly sketch is the beginning of the twentieth century: a period that marked the origins of organised day care in many European countries (Vandenbroeck, 2003). It was a period in which a huge gap between the bourgeoisie and the emerging labour class existed, due to extremely low wages and poor living conditions of the latter (Scholliers, 1995). It was just impossible for a family to feed more than one child with one income and the living conditions of labour families were less than poor, even according to the then-prevailing standards (Lafontaine, 1985). The early twentieth century was also marked by a rather harsh liberal welfare state, since it was consensual – at least among the bourgeoisie, the only citizens who had the right to vote – that the State should not intervene in private matters. As a result, there were no such measures as sickness leave, paid maternity leave, allowances or health insurances. It does not come as a surprise that child mortality was very high: 15 to 25 per cent of children did not live to see their first birthday (Plasky, 1909; Poulain & Tabutin, 1989). Both the living conditions and child mortality were sources of social uproar that challenged the social order and led to the creation of labour class movements in most industrialised cities, and subsequently to the use of strikes as a political weapon. As a result, child mortality was a rising source of concern for the leading class as well. Three scientific disciplines helped to frame this child mortality problem and to construct it as a pedagogical problem that needed intervention: statistics, eugenics and prophylaxis. The statistical sciences were originally considered as an art of governing (Fendler, 2006) and gained scientific status in this period. In the first governmental report on child mortality in Belgium, for instance, many statistical analyses were used to exclude weather conditions as a possible cause for child mortality, as well as other potential causes, and eventually to frame the problem as a problem of labour class neighbourhoods (Velghe, 1919). Inspired by the evolutionary biology of Darwin, social Darwinism (e.g. Spencer) and the neo-Malthusians (Williams, 2000), the eugenic sciences were considered as a leading source of knowledge on the importance of building a strong race for the recent nation states. As an example, the prestigious scientific Solvay Institute established the Belgian Office for Eugenics in Brussels in 1922 (Nationaal Werk voor Kinderwelzijn, 1922). It is probably not a coincidence that the attention for a strong race occurred in a period of industrialisation where health was increasingly perceived as an important economic good (Foucault, 1975). Supported by this eugenic turn, child mortality became a State affair. The premature death of a child was now not only considered as an offence of the mother towards her child, but also as an offence of the mother towards society as a whole. The new prophylactic sciences (e.g. Louis Pasteur in France, Robert Koch in Germany or Joseph Lister in England) had indeed discovered the origins of infectious diseases, as well as ways to prevent them. And with this new knowledge came a large offensive to civilise the labour class and to inform working class mothers about the new prophylactic wisdom, resulting in the mushrooming of charity initiatives such as infant consultation schemes and crèches (Vandenbroeck, 2006). These institutions often also had an implicit aim of soothing the discontent of the labour class. Their civilising function was even quite explicit in Marbeau’s much used handbook for the bourgeois charities that wished to initiate child care in France and beyond. In the chapter about the eventual opening of the crèche, Marbeau (1845, p. 91) wrote:

The poor mothers await this day like the arrival of the Messiah. A touching ceremony will show the indigent that the authority, seconded by the rich, watches over the children with maternal kindness; and the holy bells announce to the poor that one cares for him and to the rich that he has to give (translation by Vandenbroeck).⁴

It is an eloquent example of what Freire (1970, p. 44) wrote on charity:

Any attempt to “soften” the power of the oppressor in deference to the weakness of the oppressed almost always manifests itself in the form of false generosity; indeed, the attempt never goes beyond this. In order to have the continued opportunity to express their “generosity”, the oppressors must perpetuate injustice as well.

In sum, statistics framed the social problem of child mortality as a labour class problem; eugenics legitimated State intervention in a liberal – and thus non-interventionist – welfare state, whilst the prophylaxis explained how the problem needed to be solved. As a result, this scientific Truth contributed to construct the causes of child mortality as either the neglect of culpable mothers, or their ignorance, labelled as “stupid prejudices” of mothers who did “not even read the brochures we distribute to them” (Velghe, 1919). In reality, many of these mothers lacked the means to follow the advice, considering that, for instance, the wood or the coals that were necessary to sterilise the teats were unaffordable for them. The solution of the social problem – which was in the meantime translated into an educational problem – was believed to be provided by philanthropic provision that was based on charity and thus on a moral of the social order, not on civil rights. It is a typical illustration of how a social problem was politically framed as an individual problem and how science was (mis)used to legitimise this individualisation of responsibility.

The steady growth of evidence

Among the most significant developments of psychiatry during the past quarter of a century has been the steady growth of evidence that the quality of the parental care, which a child receives in his earliest years is of vital importance for his future mental health (Bowlby, 1953, p. 13).

This quote from John Bowlby, psychiatrist and “founding father” of attachment theory, is eloquent of the modernist belief in science as progress. After the Second World War, affluent societies were marked by an impressive optimism in the future and an unwavering belief in science as the pathway to welfare and happiness. It was the period in which more democratic – rights-based – welfare states were emerging (including general voting rights, social security, minimal wages, etc.) in most European countries. From the 1950s to the 1970s economies were prosperous, unemployment was historically low and – together with social security and other protective measures – this resulted in a dramatic decrease of poverty and child mortality, at least in affluent European countries. As an example: while child mortality in Belgium was still around 10 per cent shortly after WWII, it was only around 2 per cent in 1968 (Nationaal Werk voor Kinderwelzijn, 1970). This caused serious legitimation problems to the vast dispositive⁵ of child welfare organisations throughout Europe. It was developmental psychology, starting with attachment theory, that took over the prescribing role of the prophylactic sciences. The World Health Organisation (1946) broadened its definition of health to also include mental and social well-being, and in doing so, it broadened its definition of health as “not merely the absence of infirmity”. As a result, the entire population – both healthy and unhealthy – became a potential target for preventive measures. One example of this is the massive introduction of the Apgar score in the 1950s, giving a first assessment report to all new-born children on a 10-point scale. Another salient example is the rapid popularisation of the attachment theory. First developed by John Bowlby on behalf of the WHO, it was soon naturalised by Harlow (1958) and his experiments with monkeys and cloth mother surrogates. What Harlow essentially did was to demonstrate that attachment and the basic need of the young child for maternal love were simply natural: an indisputable part of both human and animal nature. In the 1970s Mary Ainsworth (Ainsworth & Bell, 1970) further completed the work and gave it an even more indisputable stance by making attachment measurable, categorisable and thus even more scientifically True. With the Strange Situation test, she developed a diagnostic instrument that aimed at distinguishing the normal from the pathological. The work of Bo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Preface
• 1. Introduction: Constructions of Truth in early childhood education: A history of the present abuse of neurosciences
• 2. The neuroturn in education: Between the Scylla of psychologization and the Charybdis of digitalization?
• 3. Using your brain: Child development, parenting and politics of evidence
• 4. Anything to divert attention from poverty
• 5. The complexity of translating neuroscience to education: The case of number processing
• Discussion
• Index