Genes, Brains, and Human Potential The Science and Ideology of Intelligence

306 PROMOTING POTENTIAL

THE CURRENT CONTEXT

As we moved into the new millennium and beyond, the meritocratic tar-
get of equal opportunity and “closing the gap” has become more elusive.
On both sides of the Atlantic, social in equality has widened, school per-
for mance results have been disappointing, and social mobility has fi zzled
out. Th e standard ideology of the child, environment, and individual po-
tential has consequently become more stressed. A report of the American
Psychological Association in 2006, specifi cally on SES, acknowledges re-
ports of the mobility myth and with it the demise of the American dream.
Two of the factors oft en emphasized in these reports are (a) the stagnating
or increasing poverty rates, and (b) increasing rates of income in equality.
An Organisation for Economic Co- operation and Development
(OECD) report of June 2014 concurs that in equality has increased and
social mobility has virtually come to a stop in countries like the United
States and the United Kingdom. And in 2015, even the International Mon-
etary Fund says that widening income inequalities is the most defi ning
challenge of our time. Overcoming false barriers to greater equality must
be part of the challenge. However, the tendency has not been to look for
wider perspectives—to consider that there may be something wrong with
the current ideology— but to reinforce the old one in two ways.
One response has been to again start inquiring whether the prob lems are
biological in nature. As described in chapter 1, funds are being pumped into
the search for genes for IQ and educational attainment, as if manipulating a
few candidate alleles might do the trick, or they may suggest more eff ective
“environmental” interventions. And behavioral ge ne ticists are being called
on to give evidence to governments. Th e subtle diff erence from historical
antecedents is that it is being done under a more benign agenda than in
the past: we are told that identifying culprit genes will lead to therapies to
relieve their handicapping eff ects (although it is also claimed that doing so
will not change the essential “ge ne tic” inequalities of ability).
Th e second response has been to reinforce the wars on parents and
schools. It is refl ected in, for example, programs like No Child Left
Behind. Founded in 2002, it was reinforced by Barack Obama in 2012
with plans designed to close achievement gaps, increase equality, improve
the quality of instruction, and increase outcomes for all students.^30

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