Jo Boaler opens by examining how fixed mindset assumptions about intelligence — believing cognitive capability is largely predetermined and unchangeable — significantly limit genuine cognitive potential and learning achievement, particularly in mathematics education.

Why challenging these fixed mindset assumptions matters:

• Many educational contexts implicitly or explicitly reinforce fixed intelligence assumptions, particularly regarding mathematical ability, potentially limiting many students' genuine cognitive development
• Boaler's research, drawing on neuroscience and educational research, directly challenges these limiting fixed mindset assumptions
• This opening establishes the book's foundational challenge to fixed intelligence assumptions, motivating its subsequent detailed evidence-based alternative framework

This opening establishes the book's foundational challenge to fixed mindset intelligence assumptions, particularly as they affect mathematics education specifically.