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Early Intervention and Evidence-Based Policy and Practice: Framing and taming

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 March 2015

Rosalind Edwards ,
Val Gillies  and
Nicola Horsley
Rosalind Edwards
Affiliation:
Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology, University of Southampton E-mail: r.s.edwards@soton.ac.uk
Val Gillies
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths College, University of London E-mail: v.gillies@gold.ac.uk
Nicola Horsley
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths College, University of London E-mail: n.horsley@gold.ac.uk
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Abstract

In this article, we highlight some critical matters in the way that an issue is framed as a problem in policymaking and the consequent means of taming that problem, in focussing on the use and implications of neuroscientific discourse of brain claims in early intervention policy and practice. We draw on three sets of analyses: of the contradictory set of motifs framing the state of ‘evidence’ of what works in intervention in the early years; of the (mis)use of neuroscientific discourse to frame deficient parenting as causing inequalities and support particular policy directions; and of the way that early years practitioners adopt brain claims to tame the problem of deficient parenting. We argue that using expedient brain claims as a framing and taming justification is entrenching gendered and classed understandings and inequalities.

Keywords

Early interventionbrain scienceevidence-basedparentingsocial inequalities
Type
Articles
Information
Social Policy and Society , Volume 15 , Issue 1 , January 2016 , pp. 1 - 10
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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