2025/10/06 by Dimitra Kotouza, Martyn Pickersgill, Jessica Pykett +1 · 1 voice
Neuroscience · Psychology · Social Sciences · #Neuroscience, Education and Cognitive Function #Educational and Psychological Assessments #Educational Leadership and Innovation
paper · doi:10.1080/01596306.2025.2567657
Educational neuroscience has expanded its influence since the 1990s, positioned as advancing new forms of intervention in educational policy and practice. Simultaneously, the gap between the neuroscience lab and the classroom has preoccupied educational debate. Yet, little is known about the discursive practices by which educational neuroscience seeks to translate science into application. In this paper, we analyse the translational knowledge brokering discourses that promote neuroscience in educational research, policy, and practice. We find three principal translational discourses at work in educational neuroscience: coalition building, promising to transform expertise in education; school partnerships, encouraging teachers and children to adopt neuroscientific lenses; and commercialisation, which presents marketable neurotechnological solutions to educational challenges. Such translational activity is frequently framed as emancipatory, pledging to address inequalities and centre critical educational expertise. However, it still foregrounds the brain, rather than its social and educational contexts, as the locus of intervention to address social problems.