How we teach human genetics matters for social equity. The biology curriculum appears to be a crucial locus of intervention for either reinforcing or undermining students’ racial essentialist views. The Mendelian genetic models dominating textbooks, particularly in combination with racially inflected language sometimes used when teaching about monogenic disorders, can increase middle and high school students’ racial essentialism and opposition to policies to increase equity. These findings are of particular concern given the increasing spread of racist misinformation online and misappropriation of human genomics research by white supremacists, who take advantage of low levels of genetics literacy in the general public. Encouragingly, however, teaching updated information about the geographic distribution of human genetic variation and the complex, multifactorial basis of most human traits, reduces students’ endorsement of racial essentialism. The genetics curriculum is therefore a key tool in combating misinformation and scientific racism. Here, we describe a framework and example teaching materials for teaching students key concepts in genetics, human evolutionary history, and human phenotypic variation at the undergraduate level. This framework can be flexibly applied in biology and anthropology classes and adjusted based on time availability. Our goal is to provide college instructors with varying levels of expertise with a set of evidence-informed tools for teaching human genetics to combat scientific racism, including an evolving set of instructional resources, as well as learning goals and pedagogical approaches instructors can apply when teaching genetics. Additionally, we hope to generate conversation about integrating modern genetics into the undergraduate curriculum, in light of recent findings about the risks and opportunities associated with teaching genetics.

https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2rbnzs7v3
A growing body of recent pedagogical research demonstrates that genetic literacy matters for social equity. Specifically, research findings indicate an exclusive focus or overemphasis on simple and/or outdated genetic models can promote genetic determinism and essentialism [1-4] and the use of racially inflected language in teaching genetics can increase racial essentialism and student opposition to policies to increase equity [5,6].
Most of this research has focused on middle and high school students but the findings raise the important question of how college-level biology and genetics educators can best counteract harmful misconceptions that our students, who by the college-level have likely already been exposed to simple, traditional genetics curricula.

Here, we present a framework and example teaching modules we have developed to teach college students key concepts in genetics, evolutionary history, and phenotypic diversity. This framework is centered around combating three central, scientifically flawed premises of scientific racism: 1) race realism, or the idea that humans naturally fall into biologically distinct racial groups; 2) genetic determinism, or the understanding that phenotypes, including psychological and behavioral phenotypes, to be primarily genetically determined; and 3) hereditarianism, or the claim that phenotypic differences among racial groups are due to genetic differences (Table 1).

Our aim is that this framework will provide college instructors with an alternative to traditional textbook approaches to teaching genetics and that these materials may motivate further conversation around how to best equip college students with a more up-to-date, non-deterministic and non-essentialist understanding of human genetics that will help them navigate and critically evaluate genetics information they will encounter in their daily lives.

1. Stern F\, Kampourakis K. Teaching for genetics literacy in the post-genomic era. Stud Sci Educ. 2017 Jul 3;53(2):193–225.
2. Jamieson A\, Radick G. Genetic Determinism in the Genetics Curriculum: An Exploratory Study of the Effects of Mendelian and Weldonian Emphases. Sci Educ. 2017 Dec;26(10):1261–1290.
3. Donovan BM. Ending genetic essentialism through genetics education. Hum Genet Genomics Adv. 2022 Jan;3(1):100058.
4. Graves JL. Great Is Their Sin: Biological Determinism in the Age of Genomics. Ann Am Acad Pol Soc Sci. 2015 Sep;661(1):24–50.

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We have organized material into four teaching modules, described below. The modules consist of slide decks, example student worksheets, and instructor’s guides provided in editable Google Drive formats.

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Human evolutionary history

Genotypes and Phenotypes

Ancestry

Scientific Racism

Resource for teaching human genetics at the college level to combat harmful misconceptions

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Abstract

README: Human Evolutionary Biology Teaching Resources

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