Howard Gardner

Howard Gardner (born July 11, 1943, Scranton, Pennsylvania, U.S.) is an American cognitive psychologist and author, best known for his theory of multiple intelligences. First presented in Frames of Mind: The Theory of Multiple Intelligences (1983) and subsequently refined and extended in Multiple Intelligences: The Theory in Practice (1993), Intelligence Reframed: Multiple Intelligences for the 21st Century (1999), and Multiple Intelligences: New Horizons (2006), Gardner’s theory inspired teachers, school leaders, and special educators to embrace the notion that there are many ways to be intelligent.

Gardner was the son of Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. He was a studious child who loved to read, and he developed into a gifted pianist. He retained a lifelong passion for music that contributed to his nonunitary conception of human cognitive capacity.

Gardner undertook most of his formal training and graduate work at Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in social relations in 1965 and a doctoral degree in developmental psychology in 1971. His many academic appointments included a professorship of neurology at Boston University School of Medicine (1984–2005) and a professorship of education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education (1986–98), where he was appointed the John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Professor of Cognition and Education in 1998.

In Frames of Mind, Gardner faulted earlier, unitary models of intellectual ability, in which intelligence was typically reported as a single IQ (intelligence quotient) score. He detailed instead a more complex paradigm in which human intelligence comprises eight or more relatively autonomous intellectual capacities: logical-mathematical intelligence, musical intelligence, linguistic intelligence, bodily-kinesthetic intelligence, spatial intelligence, interpersonal intelligence, intrapersonal intelligence (the capacity to understand oneself), and naturalist intelligence (the ability to recognize and make use of certain aspects of the environment).

The theory of multiple intelligences affected many school-improvement efforts in the United States. Gardner and others promoted efforts to understand diverse student capacities and emphasized the need for personalized educational environments, improved interdisciplinary curricular programs, and the use of performance-based assessments.

Other works by Gardner included The Mind’s New Science: A History of the Cognitive Revolution (1985) and Truth, Beauty, and Goodness Reframed: Educating for the Virtues in the 21st Century (2011).