%L discovery1517959 %J British Journal of Sociology of Education %K Rationality, networks, neuroscience, well-being, neoliberalism. %O Copyright © 2016 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved. This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in British Journal of Sociology of Education on 04 July 2016, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01425692.2016.1202747 %X This article gives an account of the use of knowledges from emerging scientific fields in education and youth policy making under the Coalition government (2010–15) in the UK. We identify a common process of ‘translation’ and offer three illustrations of policy-making in the UK that utilise diverse knowledges produced in academic fields (neuroscience, network theory and well-being). This production of ‘new knowledges’ in policy contexts allows for the identification of sites of policy intervention. This process of translation underlies a series of diverse revisions of the rational subject of policy. Collectively, these revisions amount to a change in policy-making and the emergence of a different subject of neoliberal policy. This subject is not an excluded alterity to an included rational subject of neoliberalism, but a ‘plastic subject’ characterised by its multiplicity. The plastic subject does not contradict the rational subject as central to neoliberal policy-making, but diversifies it. %A I McGimpsey %A A Bradbury %A D Santori %T Revisions to rationality: the translation of ‘new knowledges’ into policy under the Coalition Government %D 2016