Paper given at workshop for participants in the ‘Uses and Abuses of Biology’ research programme. University of Cambridge, 21 September 2013

1. Biologising Parenting:
Neuroscience Discourse and
English Social and Public
Health Policy.
Ellie Lee and Jan Macvarish, Centre for Parenting Culture
Studies, University of Kent
and
Pam Lowe, Aston University

2. Study focus: Brain claims in
English social policy

3. Background
Centre for Parenting Culture Studies
• Previous topics for research have been e.g. breastfeeding
promotion and pregnancy advice
• Session about ‘brain claims’ as part of an ESRC-funded
seminar ‘Parenting culture and the problems of policy’ held at
the British Library in 2010
http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/parentingculturestudies/pcs-events/previous-events/changingparenting-culture/seminar-4
• Conference ‘Monitoring parents: Science, evidence, experts
and the new parenting culture’ held in 2011 at the University
Kent
http://blogs.kent.ac.uk/parentingculturestudies/pcs-events/previous-events/parentingscience/

5. Contemporary Parenting Culture
• ‘Parenting culture’: the socio-cultural script and more or less
formalised rules which influence meanings and experiences of
mothering and fathering and define expectations regarding how a
parent should raise their child
• ‘Parenting’ is not the same as childrearing
• Term used increasingly from the 1970’s
• Focuses attention clearly on the parent-child relation and almost
always casts the parent-child relation as problematic and in some
way deficient
• This relation as determinant for the future of the individual
child, but also the wider society i.e. parenting culture relies on
parental-determinism

6. Contemporary Parenting Culture
• Parental-determinism, arguably contradictorily, is certain that
those other than parents have superior insights into how best
to raise and nurture children i.e. it validates shared authority
in the raising of children
• Parental-determinism has become influential in the political
domain, leading to the encouragement and institutionalisation
of the ‘parenting industry’
• The expert/policy nexus seeking to train and educate parents
directs its attentions toward all parents, but at some parents
more than others

7. Politicised Parenting
• Policy interest in what parents do is not new (at least as old as
industrialised societies)
• Decisive turn towards ‘explicit family policy’ under new Labour
• ‘Parenting’ posed overtly as leading cause of and solution to
social problems
• Claims that strong evidence base means policy makers should
and must ‘intervene early’
• Policy more and more organised around borrowed authority
(aka ‘evidence based family policy’)

8. Explicit family policy: New Labour
‘Parents and the home environment they create are the single
most important factor shaping their children’s wellbeing, achievements and prospects…’
‘…what parents do is more important than who parents are.
Parents engaging in a range of activities with their child [is]
associated with higher intellectual and social/behavioural
scores. These activities included reading with your child;
teaching songs and nursery rhymes; painting and drawing;
playing with letters and numbers; visiting the library, museums
and other places; as well as creating regular opportunities to
play with friends.’
(Every Parent Matters, 2007)

9. Explicit family policy: The Coalition
‘Free parenting classes to be offered to over 50,000 mothers
and fathers’ (Spring 2012)
Sarah Teather, Children’s Minister, said:
‘The overwhelming evidence, from all the experts, is that a
child’s development in the first five years of their life is the
single biggest factor influencing their future life chances, health
and educational attainment’.
Announcement of CANparent
http://www.education.gov.uk/inthenews/inthenews/a00199302/free-parenting-classesto-be-offered-to-over-50000-mothers-and-fathers

10. Research aims and tasks
Aim:
• Taking the example of brain claims, develop scholarship about
the ‘scientisation’ of family policy
Tasks:
• Review literature about the scientisation of the family
• Trace adoption of ‘brain based’ claims in policy since 1997

11. Historical literature
• Biological discourse is ‘Old wine in new bottles’. Continuities in
concerns - anxiety about social change, concern with proliferation of
the ‘wrong sort of people’, the child as the key to future
progress/degeneration
• International transmission of claims and ideas. From Spencer and
social Darwinism, eugenics and Ellen Key to Jack Shonkoff, I Am Your
Child, Rob Reiner, OECD, Bruce Perry, The Wave Trust, Michael
Marmott, James Heckmann, David Olds and the Nurse Family
Partnership
• Contested authority is a constant theme
• Intensified focus on intimate interactions between parent-child
• Balance of concern with ‘the many’ and ‘the few’: targeted and
universal interventions

12. Contemporary literature
1. Literature emanating from science and the philosophy of
science: critical of ‘neuromyths’ and neuroimaging claims made
on its behalf. E.g. Goswami, Bruer, Blakemore and
Frith, Kagan, Tallis, Poldrack, Rutter, Ioannidis, Kriegeskorte, Neiuwenhuis et al., Skolnick-Weisberg et
al., McCabe and Castel, Beck, O’Connor and Joffe, Connors and
Singh, Dumit, Beaulieu, Fine, Liberman, Miller, Legrenzi and Umilta.
2. Literature critiquing the biologisation and medicalisation of
(family) life – social sciences, philosophy. E.g. Wastell et
al, Bruer, Kagan, Wall, Hulbert, Wilson, Karoly et
al, Romagnoli, Nadesan, Lupton, Hays, Furedi, Yaqub, Gillies and
Edwards, Kukla, Wolf, Faircloth, Lee, Eyer, Kanieski, Lupton, Rose, Meloni, Ellul, Riley, Arendt.

13. Policy document analysis
• Content analysis of a sample of 41 policy and advocacy documents
dating from 1998 to 2012
• Purposive sampling – documents judged to be central to the formation
of parenting policy across a number of domains (social
exclusion, health, maternity services, early years, crime and justice)
• Published or commissioned by government departments or by advocacy
groups which have subsequently become key reference points
• Uploaded as PDFs to NVIVO content analysis software
• Chronological analysis
• Word counts: Attach; Attune; Brain; Cognitive; Cortisol; Empathy;
Neurons; Neuroscience; Parenting; Synapses

14. Word count results
Number of References
Number of Documents
Parenting
1566
29
Brain
396
23
Attach
366
30
Cognitive*some refs are to CBT
427
31
Empathy
116
15
Attune
86
10
Neuroscience
35
15
Synapse
31
5
Cortisol
7
13
Neuron
7
16

15. Parenting: Associated nouns
Parenting support
Parenting needs
Parenting issues
Parenting helpline
Intensive parenting
support
Parenting order
Preventive parenting
programmes
Parenting intervention
Parenting practices
Parenting style
Parenting skills
Parenting
competencies
Parenting strategy
Parenting capacity
Parenting objectives
Parenting behaviours
Parenting education
Parenting advice
Parenting facilitators
Parenting classes
Parenting educators
Parenting Institute
Parenting control
Parenting information
The Science of
Parenting
Parenting guides
Science of parenting

16. Bonding as teachable
A few years ago the health visitor undertook a course in baby
massage; she has now trained mothers from the local
community to do this. The mothers now run classes for other
mothers with infants where they can relax and chat for social
support, and also learn techniques that improve how they bond
with their babies. Mothers have found that their interaction
with their babies has improved and their babies seem much
happier.
Choosing Health (2004)

17. Policy document findings
• Concern with parenting and the ‘early years’ pre-dates brain claims
entering UK policy
• Brain claims have come from a number of directions, were initially
rather patchy and sometimes ignored but have recently gained a
more consolidated hold on policy-thinking
• The prevention dynamic: Early intervention gets earlier and earlier
(0-3, 0-2, Pregnancy, Pre-conception, Pre-parenting, Parent training
in schools)
• Brain discourse moved from being a ‘backstage’ discussion to a
significant way of organising the relationship between health and
early years practitioners, the parenting workforce and families. E.g.
From ‘Birth to Three Matters’ to ‘Five to Thrive’.

19. Policy document findings
• Teenage pregnancy as an archetype of intergenerational
transmission
• Maternal stress and depression as one of the first ways that
parental states are talked of as directly transmitting to the
child’s future state of being via the brain
• Attachment resurrected and biologised

20. Pre-natal parenting
From the very earliest years, the mother’s nutritional intake, consumption
of alcohol or drugs, even levels of stress during pregnancy can have a
substantial impact on the health and well being of the foetus and
eventual baby. Similarly we know that a child that has not had the benefit
of a positive, caring relationship with their parents is likely to have low selfesteem and be vulnerable to mental health problems. This can seriously
impair their ability to achieve, enjoy and learn.
We know the key principles of effective parenting:
• authoritative (warm and firm), not harsh parenting;
• attachment, initiated pre-birth and especially important in early
months;
• parental involvement, in the form of interest in the child and parent-child
discussions: how parents interact with their children is key;
• positive parental expectations, beliefs and attitude; and
• parental supervision.
Parenting Support: Guidance for local authorities (2006)

21. Parental emotions and the
brain
The support parents give for their children’s cognitive
development is important, as is instilling of values, aspirations
and support for the development of wider interpersonal and
social skills. Recent research shows the importance of parental
warmth, stability, consistency and boundary setting in helping
children develop such skills. It is a time of rapid brain growth
and research has shown a direct link between the stimulation a
child receives and their brain development.
Every Parent Matters 2007

22. Outputs to date
• Material used for a book Parenting Culture Studies out with Palgrave next year
• Paper under review as part of special monograph to be published by Sociology of
Health and Illness
Presentations at:
• ‘Critical Perspectives on Early Intervention’ Seminar, (LSBU, May 2013)
• ‘The Family in Crisis? Neoliberalism and Politicisation of Parenting and the
Family’ Symposium (University of East London, June 2013)
• Social Policy Association Annual Conference (Sheffield, July 2013)
• European Sociological Association Annual Conference (Turin, August 2013)
• ‘Imperfect Children’ (Centre for Medical Humanities, University of
Leicester, September 2013)

23. Plans
• Pending their publication plan being successful, paper will be
submitted for inclusion in ‘Imperfect Children’ monograph
• Aim for minimum of two further papers
• Session at the ‘Battle of Ideas’ October 2013 convened by Jan
(Val Gillies is a panellist)
• Dissemination event at the British Library 28th March 2014 in
planning stages (venue confirmed, and John Bruer confirmed
as keynote)
• Present at conference in US in 2014