the rise of brainhood and its implications to education

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to comprehend the rise of discourses about brainhood and its eventual relationto contemporary biopolitics and the ways in which individuals conduct themselves once called to answer the competitive demands of job market, to invest in themselves, and become small entrepreneurs of themselves. Through the discourses on brainhood, it seems that the possibility to review and strength individuals’ capacities and skills is a certainty, so they become more productive and efficient. There is a clear relation between the ways in which brainhood is characterized and supported, and the investments on human capital. In a society structured by the logic of performance, it becomes clear that the processes of medicalization for brain efficiency aim at the increase of work performance and learning processes. It creates a kind of “behavioral extra value” and “performance surplus.” It is also based on this logic that it is stated that inefficient brains ought to be repaired. It seems reasonable to recognize that the findings in the field of cognitive neuroscience and the proliferation of discourses around these discoveries have produced a new type of emerging life, based on brain functioning.