Racial-ethnic identity - The "missing piece" in school-based genetics education

Genetics education in middle and high school concentrates on cellular reproduction, the molecular basis of life, and the transmission of genetic traits. These ideas remain isolated from students' personal and group experiences, largely ignoring public health's message of genes operating in concert with the physical and social environment. From January 2006 to April 2007, the University of Michigan School of Public Health and Life Sciences & Society Program hosted a seminar series focusing on the implications of genetics research for the understanding of racial-ethnic identity – its capacity to teach human commonality and reduce group stereotyping. Nine speakers (from Howard University to University of Texas) and 36 academic participants gathered to discuss their research, covering multiple survey and quasi-experimental study designs, N=100 to N=1,200. Moderators devoted significant portions of each seminar to the educational salience of this research for young people, Grades 6-12. Components participants recommended for inclusion in school curricula: identification of environmental challenges (drugs, toxic substances) students encounter in their communities; appreciation of health-facilitating (family support; cultural identity) and eroding (nutritional and social inequalities; discrimination) factors impacting individual health; biologic and geographic causes of group disparities; role and proper representation of genetic variation within and between groups; the historic element (group ancestry, the Middle Passage, current events – Katrina); use of genomics to get below “skin deep” in viewing others; and criticalness training for media pieces dealing with genes and race. Participants concluded appreciation of racial-ethnic identity can advance students' genetics understanding, and their coping with health-related influences.