Frames of Mind

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.

"For those of us who suspect that intelligence is too complex a phenomenon to be measured by the single number derived from an 'intelligence test', Gardner's book is a refreshing experience and an open door into a whole new way of looking at human beings."
ISAAC ASIMOV

"Gardner makes his theory stick more firmly than any other before him, and I cannot help wondering what the effects of this book will be on the education of this country. What, for instance, might happen to IQ testing? Or to streaming?"
DAILY TELEGRAPH

"Offers a cogent, multi-dimensional answer to the IQ testing fanatics… a real alternative to the blind empiricism of the IQ testers. How refreshing to see it justified in scholarly terms."
OBSERVER