Report24th April 2025

Ethics, genomics and education: Findings from a workshop exploring the ethical landscape of using polygenic indices in education

This summary report sets out the key ethical themes and practical considerations that were identified by participants in our workshop exploring ethical perspectives on the use of genomic data in education.

The mind & brainGenomics

Report (PDF)

Polygenic indices (PGIs) are increasingly being used as predictive tools in educational contexts to ask genetically-informed questions. However, growing appetite for and access to PGIs for educationally-relevant phenotypes risks them being incorporated into education policy and practice without potential ethical implications being fully considered.

We convened a workshop with experts from across genomic science and policy, education, ethics and the social sciences, to further explore the ethical issues arising from using polygenic indices as predictive tools in education contexts.

This report sets out the key ethical themes that were identified and explored by participants, including practical considerations, and makes suggestions for further work needed to inform the potential translation of genomic data into education policy and practice.

Key Messages

• The potential use of polygenic indices (PGIs) in education policy and practice raises a range of ethical questions, including around education values, systems and futures; consent, agency and privacy; equity and fairness; genetic exceptionalism; and managing expectations.
• The use of PGIs in education raises new ethical issues distinct from uses in other contexts, including around genetic determinism and the efficacy of PGI-informed interventions.
• The existing uses of data in education raise ethical challenges that need to be mitigated, such as those around privacy and consent.
• PGIs are poor predictive tools of individual outcomes. This limits their utility and raises important ethical questions about if, when and how they could be applied in education.
• Misunderstandings arising from the complexity of the science, its limitations and how these are communicated could contribute to an appetite to prematurely translate PGIs into education.