Testing the talented child: Direct-to-consumer genetic talent tests in China

Abstract

One controversial area of direct-to-consumer genetic testing in China is “genetic talent testing” for children. In this study, I show that while experts criticize genetic talent testing as unscientific, the persistence of genetic talent testing is not merely a product of parents’ scientific illiteracy. Instead, genetic talent testing reflects parents’ pragmatic use of technology in response to the parenting pressures in contemporary China. Parents see the results of genetic talent testing as offering an advantage for their children when combined with the intensive parenting strategy of precision education. Drawing on the sociology of testing, I argue how genetic talent testing in China is a product of broader concerns about population quality and can potentially reshape how parents imagine quality children through the theory of multiple intelligences. My study of this “off label” use of direct-to-consumer genetic testing also suggests that scientists need to broaden their imagination of potential misuses of their technologies.