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Gruskin, K.; Caserta, A.J.; Colodny, J.; Dickinson-Frevola, S.; Eisenberg, E.; Geher, G.; Griffin, M.; Mccarthy, A.; Santos, S.; Thach, S.; et al. Evolutionary Mismatches Inherent in Elementary Education: Identifying the Implications for Modern Schooling Practices. Encyclopedia. Available online: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/58677 (accessed on 26 December 2025).
Gruskin K, Caserta AJ, Colodny J, Dickinson-Frevola S, Eisenberg E, Geher G, et al. Evolutionary Mismatches Inherent in Elementary Education: Identifying the Implications for Modern Schooling Practices. Encyclopedia. Available at: https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/58677. Accessed December 26, 2025.
Gruskin, Kathryne, Anthony J. Caserta, Julia Colodny, Stephanie Dickinson-Frevola, Ethan Eisenberg, Glenn Geher, Mariah Griffin, Aileen Mccarthy, Sonia Santos, Shayla Thach, et al. "Evolutionary Mismatches Inherent in Elementary Education: Identifying the Implications for Modern Schooling Practices" Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/58677 (accessed December 26, 2025).
Gruskin, K., Caserta, A.J., Colodny, J., Dickinson-Frevola, S., Eisenberg, E., Geher, G., Griffin, M., Mccarthy, A., Santos, S., Thach, S., & Tamayo, N. (2025, July 25). Evolutionary Mismatches Inherent in Elementary Education: Identifying the Implications for Modern Schooling Practices. In Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.pub/entry/58677
Gruskin, Kathryne, et al. "Evolutionary Mismatches Inherent in Elementary Education: Identifying the Implications for Modern Schooling Practices." Encyclopedia. Web. 25 July, 2025.
Peer Reviewed
Evolutionary Mismatches Inherent in Elementary Education: Identifying the Implications for Modern Schooling Practices
This is a peer-reviewed entry published in Encyclopedia Journal, full entry can be found at 10.3390/encyclopedia5030105

For the majority of human history, humans lived in sustenance hunter–gatherer tribes. Due to rapid cultural evolution in the past few thousand years, our biological evolution has not kept up, and many of the adaptations are, as a result, better suited to ancestral conditions than they are to modern conditions. This is known as evolutionary mismatch. While evolutionary mismatches can be seen across many facets of contemporary human life (e.g., diet, exercise, online communication), evolutionary mismatches are particularly pervasive in our elementary schools. Due to the critical nature of social learning and cultural transmission, there is a long history of learning that has shaped the evolved learning mechanisms of children. Rather than learning from hands-on, collaborative experiences as was typical for our ancestors, children today often learn in age-segregated classrooms through passive instruction and standardized curricula. In this entry, eight common school-related issues are identified and the associated evolutionary mismatch is outlined. The goal is to provide educators with a model of how an evolutionary lens can be used to better understand, and potentially improve, modern schooling systems.

evolutionary psychology evolutionary mismatch education school reform child development
Schooling is a ubiquitous construct in modern, Westernized cultures. In these cultures, childhood is characterized by schooling demands, dynamics, and the school schedule [1][2]. Yet, schooling has not been such a domineering construct for much of human history. In the United States, schooling was made compulsory in all states by the year 1918 [3]. As such, it has only been within the past 100 or so years that formal schooling has become the norm for childhood.
While some children do just fine in a traditional educational setting, there are significant issues demonstrated in childhood that can be related to schooling practices. For example, children are demonstrating impaired social skills [4][5][6], there are high levels of generalized and academic anxiety in children [7][8][9], motivation and engagement are low [10][11], and children engage in antisocial behaviors [12]. It should come as no surprise that there has been innumerable research performed with a focus on the United States Educational System that aims to improve childhood and schooling outcomes [13][14][15]. Much work in schools focuses on adapting the system for individual children if and when they struggle (e.g., providing special education services). While work is being conducted in various fields, there remains no consensus on the systematic root causes of these school-related issues, nor is there guidance on a singular way to attempt to approach such issues [13].
The growing field of evolutionary educational psychology presents a novel way of attempting to tackle these school-related issues. Evolutionary educational psychology posits that the brain, and therefore the ability to learn, has been shaped by natural selection [1]. Evolutionary educational psychologists thereby study the connections between how our species has evolved to learn and how those evolved mechanisms play out in modern classrooms and contexts [1][2][16][17]. Researchers have studied areas such as the types of knowledge acquired in schools [18][19], social relationships and bullying [12], alternative school models [2][20], cognitive load [21], and so much more. Evolutionary educational psychology has the unique potential to help those involved in the education of children to approach educational concerns with a comprehensive understanding of human nature and long-standing evolved learning mechanisms. This entry is intended to provide guidance to those in the field of education as to how ideas from evolutionary educational psychology can be practically applied to better understand modern schooling practices.

References

  1. Gray, P. Free to Learn: Why Unleashing the Instinct to Play Will Make Our Children Happier, More Self-Reliant, and Better Students for Life; Basic Books: New York, NY, USA, 2013.
  2. Rauscher, E. Educational expansion and occupational change: US compulsory schooling laws and the occupational structure 1850–1930. Soc. Forces 2015, 93, 1397–1422.
  3. Abry, T.; Bryce, C.I.; Swanson, J.; Bradley, R.H.; Fabes, R.A.; Corwyn, R.F. Classroom-Level adversity: Associations with children’s internalizing and externalizing behaviors across elementary school. Dev. Psychol. 2017, 53, 487–510.
  4. Rapport, M.D.; Denney, C.B.; Chung, K.M.; Hustace, K. Internalizing behavior problems and scholastic achievement in children: Cognitive and behavioral pathways as mediators of outcome. J. Clin. Child Psychol. 2001, 30, 536–551.
  5. Whitted, K. Understanding how social and emotional skill deficits contribute to school failure. Prev. Sch. Fail. 2011, 55, 10–16.
  6. Haidt, J. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness; Penguin Press: New York, NY, USA, 2024.
  7. Masia Warner, C.; Fox, J.K. Advances and challenges in school-based intervention for anxious and depressed youth: Identifying and addressing issues of sustainability. Sch. Ment. Health 2012, 4, 193–196.
  8. Jiang, M.; Gao, K.; Wu, Z.; Guo, P. The influence of academic pressure on adolescents’ problem behavior: Chain mediating effects of self-control, parent–child conflict, and subjective well-being. Front. Psychol. 2022, 13, 954330.
  9. Lepper, M.R.; Corpus, J.H.; Iyengar, S.S. Intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations in the classroom: Age differences and academic correlates. J. Educ. Psychol. 2005, 97, 184–196.
  10. Rufini, S.É.; Bzuneck, J.A.; de Oliveira, K.L. The quality of motivation among elementary school students. Paidéia 2012, 22, 53–62.
  11. Volk, A.A.; Dane, A.V.; Al-Jbouri, E. Is adolescent bullying an evolutionary adaptation? A 10-year review. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 2022, 34, 2351–2378.
  12. Allison, L.; Waters, L.; Kern, M.L. Flourishing classrooms: Applying a systems-informed approach to positive education. Contemp. Sch. Psychol. 2020, 25, 395–405.
  13. Barrs, M.; Rustin, M. What has happened to our schools? Soundings 2017, 67, 8–33.
  14. McGrath, M. The politics of educational improvement. Natl. Civ. Rev. 2017, 4, 44–51.
  15. Bjorklund, D.F. Children’s evolved learning abilities and their implications for education. Educ. Psychol. Rev. 2022, 34, 2243–2273.
  16. Gruskin, K.; Geher, G. The evolved classroom: Using evolutionary theory to inform elementary pedagogy. Evol. Behav. Sci. 2018, 12, 336–347.
  17. Geary, D.C. Reflections of evolution and culture in children’s cognition: Implications for mathematical development and instruction. Am. Psychol. 1995, 50, 24–37.
  18. Geary, D.C. An evolutionarily informed education science. Educ. Psychol. 2008, 43, 179–195.
  19. Gray, P. Self-Directed Education—Unschooling and Democratic Schooling; Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Education: New York, NY, USA, 2017.
  20. Sweller, J. Cognitive load theory. Psychol. Learn. Motiv. 2011, 55, 37–76.
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Subjects: Education & Educational Research
Contributors MDPI registered users' name will be linked to their SciProfiles pages. To register with us, please refer to https://encyclopedia.pub/register : Kathryne Gruskin , Anthony J. Caserta ,
Julia Colodny
, Stephanie Dickinson-Frevola , Ethan Eisenberg , Glenn Geher , Mariah Griffin ,
Aileen McCarthy
,
Sonia Santos
, Shayla Thach ,
Nadia Tamayo
View Times: 305
Online Date: 25 Jul 2025
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