Good genes beat good homes as guide to pupils’ school Success

Times Online ^ | 6 November 2005 | David Smith and Abul Taher

[shrinkermd]

NATURE not nurture is the main determinant of how well children perform at school and university, according to a study to be published this week

[shrinkermd]

Never popular, never stated never mind seems to be the attitude towards this long standing finding.

[Izzy Dunne]

Choose your parents carefully.

[Doogle]

...and all this time I thought it was my sex abusing teacher.


Doogle

[nmh]

But the new study, to be published in the Royal Economic Society’s Economic Journal, will argue that while income and home environment account for about 25% of educational attainment, inherited intelligence is responsible for the rest.

Doubling a family’s income would have only a small effect on educational performance, say the researchers, who examined more than 15,000 children, 574 of them adopted.

It found that on average the adopted children performed less well. This of course need not be a bar to success in life. Many adopted children, including Roman Abramovich, the Chelsea owner; Kate Adie, the BBC journalist; and Eric Clapton, the guitarist, enjoy spectacular careers.

---

What your parents gave you is important but how you USE it is even more important. I would not agree entirely with their assessment. Sanders, the Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken was worth OODLES when he died. He was ADOPTED.

So it is a combination of what you inherit from your parents and what your environment encourages - excellence or being a "victim" ... .

[netmilsmom]

It's both.

[thulldud]

Used to be, you couldn't get a grant for a study that might come out this way.

How times have changed.

[LaineyDee]

Oh cool. So all we have to do from here on ... is a little genetic manipulation.....then house the little darlings in an incubator ......let the state house them in "indoctrination camps"... and we'll have a super race! Wait...didn't someone try that already? *smile*

[I got the rope]

Is this one worthy of the list? Looks like the "Bell Curve" revisited. It comes in cycles.

Stephen J. Gould is rolling in his grave.

[in hoc signo vinces]

Eugenics...never seems to go away, wonder why?

[GSlob]

Murray and Herrnstein, "The Bell Curve", 1994. IQ is about 70% genetic.

[nmh]

That's debatable. He did well.

My point is that being "adopted" is not necessarily going to hold you back.

[null and void]

We need your tagline here...

[GSlob]

Well, it might be worth revisiting: with more data now available, the researchers have narrowed the degree of IQ heritability: nowadays it is estimated to be about 70%, while Murray and Herrnstein held to a bit more conservative estimates.

[M203M4]

The importance of good jeans cannot be stressed enough.

[LWalk18]

They are not saying that every adopted person will be a failure, but that as a whole adopted children in wealthy families do not do as well in school as their biological counterparts.

[surely_you_jest]

Never popular, never stated never mind seems to be the attitude towards this long standing finding.

Too true. One can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear.

[Wiseghy]

Most teachers will tell you that parental emphasis on and attitude toward education is the most consistent predictor of performance.

Ability is a factor, however, especially in the earlier grades. In later grades, effort and focus pays big dividends.

Income always has been mostly a political measure.

Poor imigrant families with little money, however, pay for tutoring for their kids and build solid homework time into daily routines, while praising and rewarding good school performance. Those kids often perform the best, and achieve to their maximum ability, unlike many other children who do not.

[Darnright]

>What your parents gave you is important but how you USE it is even more important. I would not agree entirely with their assessment. Sanders, the Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken was worth OODLES when he died. He was ADOPTED.<

Perhaps the good colonel's parents were bright, but young and unmarried, thus giving baby Harlan up for adoption.

I have a friend, whose adoptive parents have 2 other, natural children. He's nothing like the rest of the family, in intellect or in social station now that he's an adult.

[L98Fiero]

"Sanders, the Founder of Kentucky Fried Chicken was worth OODLES when he died. He was ADOPTED."

You are thinking of Dave Thomas of "Wendy's"