Frames of mind

The author demonstrates that there exist many human "intelligences", common to all cultures - each with its own patterns of development and brain activity, and each different in kind from the others.

When 'Frames of Mind' was first published in 1984 it was acclaimed as 'a most important contribution to cognitive psychology'. In it Howard Gardner demonstrates that there exist many human 'intelligences', common to all cultures – each with its own patterns of development and brain activity, and each different in kind from the others. These potentials include linguistic, musical, and logical/mathematical capacities, as well as spatial and bodily intelligences, and the ability to arrive at an emotional and mental sense of self and other people. Rather than reducing an individual's potential to a single score on an IQ test, it is the fostering and education of all these intellingences that should be our concern. Gardner's controversial argument has resounding implications for the ways in which we think about intelligence and education.