Thread by @naomicfisher

Cultural capital and #cogsci. Cognitive scientists sometimes say that deprived children lack the background knowledge that other children acquire at home, and so the aim of education should be to even this out. 1/

One efficient way to do this, it’s said, is by explicitly teaching a body of facts which are said to make up the common knowledge that as as a culture we expect ‘well educated’ people to have. 2/

@DTWillingham suggests that this should be the back ground knowledge necessary to read a broadsheet newspaper or books written for the ‘intelligent layman’ on science or politics. This,he says, is the information which will have the greatest cognitive benefit.3/

So to this end, children are to be taught this information - termed the ‘touchstones of the culture of dead white males’. There are lists of what they should know. Willingham does say that knowledge can be learnt incidentally, not just by direct instruction. 4/

From a cognitive science perspective, this seems to make sense. This information may have the most utility. 5/

However, it highlights a problem with the model. It prioritises information processing over anything else, and cultural capital is therefore defined in these terms - as a lack of information. 6/

Since knowledge acquisition is the aim, that is how education techniques are designed. This often means highly regimented lessons with little scope for autonomy, creativity or choice. Learning is defined as remembering. 7/

But knowledge is only a small part of cultural capital. I noticed this when I went to university. Many people were from private schools. They related to the academics differently to me, they expected to be taken seriously and listened to. 8/

I was terrified of getting it wrong, they were confident of getting it right. Even when they were wrong. They didn’t have more knowledge but they felt they had a right to talk to our professors as equals. They did not expect to be told what to learn.They expected autonomy. 9/

The problem is, if we define the difference in terms of lack of knowledge, then (some feel) it is justified to control children with the aim of redressing the balance. It is literally their future success which is at stake. Better get that information in there at all costs. 10/

But when our attention is focused on knowledge, it’s not elsewhere. It’s not on all the other things children are learning - the hidden curriculum in fact. If we treat children as if their role in education is to listen and remember facts, then that is what they learn to do. 11/

They move on from school and they continue to see themselves as passive recipients. They carry that with them. No matter how much knowledge they have stored in their long term memories, if they don’t feel like active agents in the learning process, it’s just information, 12/

And information isn’t hard to find in our world. It can be acquired at any stage if you want to (and you might decide that the culture of dead white males isn’t what matters to you). 13/

The other sort of cultural capital is harder to find, and more difficult to acquire later. Because it’s about how you relate to yourself, the world and others, and how you expect them to relate to you. 14/

So that should always be at the centre of any educational plan. Not just, what information am I teaching here, but also, what are the children learning by the way I am teaching them? What are the side effects of this lesson? 15/

And that’s the problem with reductionist models. They focus our attention in one direction, making it easier to forget all the other things that matter too. But they are theories, not fact. They are one way to think about one type of learning. 16/

I can’t edit in Twitter, But I probably should have said ‘proponents of cognitive science in education’ rather than ‘cognitive scientists’.

I meant ‘public schools’ here, the name for elite upper class private schools in the UK. I used private so as to not to cause confusion. I am middle class, very privileged compared to most. But I immediately felt the difference in how we related to the world.