Dr. Joanna Christodoulou, director of the Brain, Education, and Mind (BEAM) Lab at the IHP, co-led an international team of scientists who wrote a chapter on diversity and social justice in education included in UNESCO’s International Science and Evidence

Dr. Joanna Christodoulou was among a select group of researchers from the United States who participated in a recent large-scale assessment of knowledge of education released by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, known as UNESCO.

Christodoulou, Director of the MGH Institute of Health Profession’s Brain, Education, and Mind (BEAM) Lab, co-led an international team of scientists who wrote a chapter on diversity and social justice in education included in UNESCO’s International Science and Evidence Based Education Assessment. The report recommends developing educational standards across the globe that employ a cognitive-emotional approach to learning, and for education policymaking to be guided by science and evidence.

“There are many differences in how students are taught and what they learn based on factors such as politics, social class, and economics, so the purpose of the report was to identify ways to level the playing field,” said Christodoulou, who was part of an effort that brought together more than 300 experts from 45 countries over the past two years from disciplines such as neuroscience, technology, education, philosophy, data and evidence, and sustainability. “I'm excited because I think the report can have a major positive impact in how people learn.”

A developmental cognitive neuroscientist and educator, Christodoulou noted that student learning depends upon the structural and external constraints of the political, institutional, social, and cultural environments where students live. While often it’s based upon a country’s overall approach to education, it can vary widely from community to community. For example, learning disabilities such as dyslexia – which she said affects as much as 10% of the population – is handled differently across the globe.

“Insights from cognitive neuroscience can offer an understanding of difference based on brain differences for learners and bring a shared vision of universal learning features that transcends other diversity forms such as race/ethnicity, religion, gender and sexuality,” she said.

Issues around how schools handle diversity and social justice topics, of which she is especially interested, also was part of her team’s focus. “Approaches have shifted from assimilation to cerebrating differences, and then to a critical approach to understand unconscious bias and mechanisms of oppression in schooling,” she said. “In my lab’s work, we are dedicated to supporting students with learning differences and the intersectionality with other types of diversity. Our research strives to foster understanding of others’ differences and challenges - hidden or visible - to inform how we think, feel, and act as a community in and out of school settings.”