Pink brains and education: a postfeminist analysis of neuroscience and neurosexism

• Main Authors: Nancy Lesko, Stephanie D. McCall, Mirian Jorge Warde, Luiz Ramires Neto
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedade Brasileira de História da Educação 2014-07-01
• Series: Revista Brasileira de História da Educação
• Online Access: http://www.periodicos.uem.br/ojs/index.php/rbhe/article/view/38883

This article examines the representations of girls and gender that operate within the popular ideas of ‘pink brains’ and ‘blue brains’. As brain research moves into education and teacher training, what are the implications for curriculum, pedagogy, and school organization? We noticed that findings from neuroscience confirm familiar images of girls: as early maturing, emotional, needing to feel accepted by teachers, and as needing abstract ideas connected to real life. Writers utilizing the evidence of brain research are quick to call brains ‘hard-wired’ and equally quick to call for sex- segregated classrooms. In interpreting neuroscience in critical ways, the social contexts and political implications of imaging young women as hard-wired brains are highlighted.