G is for Genes: The Impact of Genetics on Education and Achievement (Understanding Children?s Worlds)

G is for Genes shows how a dialogue between geneticists and educationalists can have beneficial results for the education of all children―and can also benefit schools, teachers, and society at large.

• Draws on behavioral genetic research from around the world, including the UK-based Twins’ Early Development Study (TEDS), one of the largest twin studies in the world
• Offers a unique viewpoint by bringing together genetics and education, disciplines with a historically difficult relationship
• Shows that genetic influence is not the same as genetic determinism and that the environment matters at least as much as genes
• Designed to spark a public debate about what naturally-occurring individual differences mean for education and equality

Kathryn Asbury is a Lecturer in the Centre for Psychology in Education at the University of York, UK.  She has published widely on the influence of home and school environments on children’s achievement, behavior, and wellbeing.

Robert Plomin is the Professor of Behavioural Genetics at the MRC Social, Genetic and Developmental Psychiatry Centre, King’s College London, UK.  He is the founder and principal investigator of the Twins’ Early Development Study (TEDS), and has published more than 500 papers and a dozen books on behavior genetics.