How can a genetics education that never moves beyond Mendel reinforce essentialist beliefs?

When genetics instruction stops at Mendel — single genes, simple inheritance, one gene one trait — it leaves students with an incomplete picture of how genetics works. That incomplete picture has consequences. It predisposes students to believe that racial groups are genetically discrete and internally uniform: that the differences between groups are large and that the variation within groups is small.

These beliefs are called genetic essentialism — a misconception illustrated in the left panel of the diagram below, where groups appear genetically separate and non-overlapping. The right panel shows a more scientifically accurate picture: ancestry groups share the majority of alleles that exist in the human genome, with only a small fraction of those genetic differences occurring among groups. Of the 4-5 million nucleotides in the human genome that differ from human to human, studies show that only about 5% differ between humans because of their ancestry. But most people are never taught that.

Instead, research shows that US high school students and adults have inaccurate views about human population genetics. For example, they tend to think that 37% of human genetic differences are racial in origin. That number is not accurate. It is similar to the amount of genetic differences across dog breeds, but it’s seven times greater than the amount of genetic differences across human ancestry groups. The reason such misconceptions persist in our society is not only because they are rarely addressed by genetics education. It’s also because Mendelian genetics education can cause students to develop distorted views about human populations.

Several studies suggest that a genetics education that never moves beyond the foundation of Mendel increases the risk that students develop essentialist views about race. Those same studies also show that when education moves beyond the Mendelian foundation, and into the complexity of genomics, then students develop a more accurate view of human difference. That’s good news, because studies show that students who endorse essentialism exhibit lower academic achievement in college biology courses. Genetic essentialism is not just scientifically wrong either — it is socially dangerous. Research shows it fuels intergroup hostility, support for eugenic policies, discrimination, and disinterest in cross-racial friendships.

Instruction that challenges essentialism by helping students understand inheritance beyond Mendel is known as humane genomics education. Humane genomics instruction refutes essentialism by teaching what Mendel’s framework left out: human population genetics and the multifactorial basis of complex traits. By teaching students that ancestry groups share most of their variable DNA — as shown in the right panel above — and that complex traits like intelligence are shaped by hundreds of genes interacting with (and alongside) hundreds of environmental factors, humane genomics instruction directly refutes essentialism. It helps students understand why it is incorrect to believe that each race possesses special genes that makes them inherently good at some things, but bad at other things.

The rest of this science page unpacks why genetics education needs to move beyond Mendel and what the benefits of that kind of education are. The work described here was led by Brian Donovan — founder of Beyond Mendel LLC — and it has earned Brian several awards, including the Genetics Society of America’s Elizabeth W. Jones Award for Excellence in Education in 2026 and the NARST Early Career Research Award. The American Genetic Association Humane Genomics Education Award was named in honor of this work.

Essentialist beliefs have roots in the biology curriculum’s focus on Mendelian inheritance

From Charles Davenport’s Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911).

The pedigree chart shown here is from Charles Davenport’s Heredity in Relation to Eugenics (1911), a textbook used in American colleges for decades. The format is identical to the pedigree charts still used in high school biology today — the only difference is what the symbols track: not genetic diseases, but human beings classified as "defectives." The explanation for the ‘defective’ phenotype was a single genotype. That is, Mendel’s work with peas was repeatedly distorted to promote eugenic ideology.

By 1941, that ideology had found its way into most high school biology textbooks. Ritchie’s Biology and Human Affairs (1941) — used across the United States — told students: "A biologist expects to find natural differences in people. He is prepared to find great differences in mechanical, artistic, and intellectual ability . . . he knows that there are innate differences in persons that cannot be removed." (p. 39). The same textbook presented racial classification as scientific consensus: "the Caucasian, Australoid, Negroid or woolly-haired, and Yellow-brown or Mongoloid" (p. 59–60) are scientifically agreed upon racial classification systems. This textbook, like others in the pre-war era, directly communicated essentialist ideas about race.

Although a text from 1941 may seem ancient to some, the ideas in this text still echo through popular culture today. Two films make what these beliefs look like in practice vivid in ways that no diagram can. Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit (2019) illustrates how essentialist beliefs about the uniformity of the Jewish diaspora acted as a foundation for the antisemitic views of the Nazis. The comedy depends entirely on the audience knowing the premise is absurd: the young Nazi protagonist has been taught that Jewish people all look alike, think alike, and carry the same fixed traits. Similarly, Jordan Peele’s Get Out (2017) illustrates the danger of essentialist beliefs about the discreteness of groups and the genetic determination of traits. The horror rests on the absurd premise that racial groups are categorically different and that ancestry determines biological ability.

These films were pop cultural hits that many people are familiar with today. What most people don’t know is that the essentialist premises interrogated in those films were communicated directly to students through the biology curriculum of the early 20th century. Even more troubling are studies demonstrating that essentialist beliefs persist today because they are reinforced subtly by the Mendelian genetics curriculum.

Donovan (2017) · Journal of Research in Science Teaching

Does instruction about single-gene inheritance — Mendelism — make essentialist beliefs worse?

In a field experiment with 135 students in the San Francisco Bay Area, Brian found that when students experienced genetics instruction associating racial groups with specific genetic diseases — for example, that sickle cell anemia is a disease of African-Americans alone — they steadily increased in their belief in genetic essentialism over 90 days. Students who experienced identical genetics instruction without a racial framing showed no change (play with the data below to see the effect for yourself). Critically, the instruction never promoted racist ideas explicitly. The racial framing of monogenic diseases was enough to produce an essentialist distortion: students came to see same-race individuals as more genetically uniform and racial categories as more genetically discrete. Two other experiments replicated these effects.

This means that the genetics curriculum can unintentionally push students to develop the kinds of distorted views that are explored in Jojo Rabbit and Get Out. Now there’s nothing wrong with learning about the Mendelian mechanisms governing monogenic disorders. Those diseases have dramatic effects on individuals and families, and they elucidate important principles of inheritance and evolution. Sickle cell anemia is more common in Sub-Saharan African populations than it is in European populations. The reverse is true for cystic fibrosis. The problem is not that students learn about the prevalence of these genetic diseases, it is that students made the incorrect inference that if races differ in disease prevalence because of their genotypes, then they must also differ in intelligence because of their genes. And since students rarely encounter the genomic science beyond Mendel that refutes these inferences, they often leave class with distorted views about race.

The problem is not the students, it is that curriculum designers have not thought carefully about the kinds of ideas about race they want kids to learn. Because the text does not take an explicit stand against essentialism, it therefore allows kids to misconstrue genetic information in an essentialist manner. Why does that happen? Probably because essentialism is an early developing cognitive bias that is prevalent across cultures throughout our world. Genetics curricula activate that idea when they indirectly discuss race. When they then describe how different races suffer from different monogenic diseases they unintentionally push kids to see racial groups as categorically different and internally uniform.

Fortunately, research conducted by Brian and his team has repeatedly demonstrated how moving beyond Mendel can solve this problem. Move onto the solution page to learn more.

The Solution →

Donovan et al. (2019) · Science Education

Can moving beyond Mendel into the complexity of human genetic variation reverse this effect?

If Mendelian instruction increases essentialism by reinforcing the perception that groups are genetically separate and internally uniform, then teaching students about actual patterns of genetic variation in humans should reduce essentialism. Most of the variation in the human genome exists among individuals of the same ancestry group. Individuals of different groups have genomes that are only about 5% more different than the genomes of two randomly picked people of the same ancestry group. Students rarely learn these ideas about patterns in the human genome because they are not a part of the Mendelian foundation that defines genetics education.

Across three randomized controlled trials, Brian and his team have demonstrated that learning about this aspect of the human genome can cause significant reductions in students’ genetic essentialist beliefs about race. When students learn about this finding, they develop a more accurate perception of between-group difference, and this causes them to disbelieve essentialist distortions of inheritance. Students become less likely to believe that each race has its own special genes that determine their abilities and potential. Play the data and read the paper to learn more about the details of these studies.

Donovan et al. (2020) · Journal of Research in Science Teaching

How does a strong foundation in genetics beyond Mendel interact with education to affect prejudice?

The 2019 studies showed that humane genomics instruction works to belief in genetic essentialism. But they raised a follow-up question: does this change depend on what students already know about genomics? Genomics is the scientific term for what lies beyond Mendel. It involves models like polygenic inheritance and multifactorial inheritance. Students who already understand these more complex genomic models may be better equipped to grasp why genetic determinism is implausible. In a randomized controlled trial with 721 high schoolers, Brian and his team confirmed this hypothesis: students with greater prior genomics knowledge showed significantly greater reductions in perceived racial differences and genetic essentialism in response to humane genomics instruction. The curriculum worked for everyone, but it worked more powerfully for students who arrived with more of a foundation in the genomics beyond Mendel. Play with the data and read the paper to learn more about the details of these studies.

Donovan et al. (2024) · Science

What does humane genomics instruction do at scale — and does it hold in diverse schools?

The results of the previous study showed that students with more knowledge of multifactorial inheritance changed more in response to humane genomics instruction about patterns of genetic variation in human populations. On the basis of these findings, Donovan’s team revised the humane genomics curriculum by adding in additional instruction about how complex traits are influenced by multiple genetic and environmental factors operating within and between groups. The new curriculum helped kids understand that the environment is a better explanation for trait variation between groups even when trait variation within a group has a weak genetic basis. John Landis’s movie Trading Places (1983) captures the new story that students learned with this revision.

In that movie, two wealthy old men bet on whether Eddie Murphy or Dan Aykroyd will succeed when they trade places to experience each other’s life circumstances. It’s basically a comedic description of a common garden experiment designed to refute genetic determinism. Hold the genes roughly constant, vary the social environment radically, and see what happens. The film’s punchline is that environment swamps genetic determination. That is the same logic that humane genomics instruction teaches formally — and it is the logic that directly refutes the belief that group differences in intelligence and ability are written in the genes.

To test whether the new humane genomics curriculum would work, Donovan’s research team conducted a much larger study. The early studies on humane genomics instruction were conducted in small, relatively homogeneous settings that made it easier to detect a treatment effect. They preregistered and then conducted a crossover trial using schools in multiple states. This means they randomly assigned half of the classrooms in their study to receive Mendelian instruction first, and then Humane Genomics instruction afterward. The other half of classes got the same curricula in the opposite order. Every classroom went beyond Mendel in a different order. Brian only conducted and reported the statistical tests he registered as hypotheses before the study began.

The results: humane genomics instruction produced significantly greater gains in genomics knowledge, greater reductions in genetic essentialism, and greater increases in the belief that racism — not biology — creates social disparities. This means the kids had learned the main idea from the movie Trading Places.

But that’s not all they learned. Humane genomics instruction also reduced the emotional cost of learning genetics for students of color. Because the study used a crossover design — every student received both conditions — it was able to show that students of color reported significantly less anxiety, confusion, and frustration when learning from the humane genomics materials as compared to the Mendelian materials.

In those ways, the curriculum resonates with Theodore Melfi’s movie Hidden Figures (2016). That film captures what it’s like to be a Black female scientist working at NASA when many of your colleagues have essentialist ideas about race and gender. It shows not just the intellectual burden of working against an assumption that your group’s underrepresentation in science is biological, but the emotional weight of being in a room where people hold such assumptions. Humane genomics instruction appears to change what that room feels like. Brian’s team estimates that when humane genomics instruction is implemented in a classroom of 30 students it causes two students to fully change their essentialist beliefs. That means two students per classroom move from believing to disbelieving the idea that races differ in intelligence because of genetics. That might not sound like much until you consider what it might feel like to go to school with someone who holds those stereotypes about you. And the data showed that emotional effect, too.

The studies show humane genomics instruction reduces belief in genetic essentialism. Move onto the curriculum page to learn how.

The Curriculum →

Wedow, Jeong, Thompson, … Donovan et al. (2026) · Human Genetics and Genomics Advances

How does humane genomics education create a cognitive change in the minds of students?

Humane genomics instruction works at scale and shifts a variety of racial beliefs. This study asked a deeper question: how does it work, and for whom does it work best? It explored the cognitive mechanisms that lead to a reduction in essentialism and tested whether students who arrive with more prior genomics knowledge benefit more from a particular mechanism of change. The experiments were carried out with 2000 biology and psychology undergraduates at a large university in two different preregistered randomized trials.

These studies found that humane genomics instruction reduces essentialism through four cognitive mechanisms. Humane genomics instruction causes reductions in genetic essentialist beliefs about race by helping students to (1) perceive more variability among individuals of the same race; (2) perceive less variability between or across races; (3) attribute complex traits like intelligence and science ability less to genes and (4) more to the environment. All four mechanisms matter. But the mechanisms of change that made the most difference in terms of reducing essentialism were the pathways described in points two and three. And the students who began the humane genomics learning experience with more knowledge of multifactorial inheritance changed more through pathway three. This means that a foundation in the genomics beyond Mendel is most important for helping students see through the distortion of essentialism.

What does the instruction actually look like — and why does it produce these effects?

The five studies above document that humane genomics instruction works, for whom it works best, and through which cognitive pathways. The curriculum targets three specific misconceptions that are inappropriate for understanding complex traits and questions of race — beliefs in uniformity, discreteness, and genetic determination — and replaces them with more accurate models through a carefully designed sequence of instructional experiences. If you want to see how the pedagogy helps kids change their mental models of inheritance click on the box below. It shows how the curriculum uses contrasting cases of data and an evidence laden narrative to help students see the flaws in inaccurate models of inheritance. The paper below that toggle unpacks how the instruction moves students from the misconception models to the accurate models through a variety of research-based instructional supports. Read that paper if you are serious about moving beyond Mendel and into the complexity of humane genomics instruction. The paper will help you understand how the curriculum works and how to adapt the curriculum for your classroom.

Access the research-based curriculum

The HGL curriculum (CC-BY-NC-ND) is freely available to any teacher who wants to use it — preserved permanently with citable DOIs for each lesson. Brian and his collaborators have made it free so that any teacher can move beyond Mendel and help their students develop more accurate and humane views of human genetic variation.

Bring the science into your work

The five studies above document what is possible when genetics education moves beyond Mendel. If you want to bring this work into your institution, the services page describes three ways to work with Brian directly. And if you want to support the next chapter, the Future Work page describes what that would take. The science is done. The curriculum is free. What comes next depends on who decides it matters.