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Gardner Wins Prince of Asturias Award

Howard GardnerProfessor Howard Gardner has received the 2011 Prince of Asturias Award for Social Sciences. The Prince of Asturias Awards, given by a foundation headed by Spain’s Crown Prince Felipe, aim “to reward the scientific, technical, cultural, social, and humanistic work performed at an international level by individuals, institutions, or groups of individuals or institutions.”

The foundation awards eight Asturias prizes each year in subjects of arts, human rights, sciences, and sports. Gardner received the second prize the foundation has bestowed this year. He will receive the award at a ceremony in October.

“I am thrilled and humbled to receive this prestigious award,” Gardner said. “While my training is primarily in psychology, I have always considered myself a social scientist, and I feel that much of the best work about human nature and human society draws on a range of social scientific disciplines. Also, at this time the accent in Anglo-American social science falls almost entirely on quantitative work. I am pleased that this award can recognize the strand of social science which involves qualitative analyses and broad syntheses of knowledge.”

The foundation praised Gardner’s work as being "decisive for the evolution of educational models by taking into account the innate potentialities of each individual."

Previous winners of the Social Science awards include Paul Krugman (2004), former President of Ireland Mary Robinson (2006), and the archaeological team responsible for unearthing China’s Terracotta Warriors of Xian (2010). The prize, which dates back to 1981, includes a diploma, cash award, a sculpture by Joan Mirò, and a certificate to be presented by H.R.H. Prince Felipe at the award ceremony in October.

For more information on the Prince of Asturias Awards, visit: http://www.fpa.es/.

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