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

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.