Family background’s effect on schooling barely runs through IQ, not through measured ability

Evidence

The right-hand bars of Figure 2—1 indicate that even among children with identical IQ test scores at ages six and eight, those with rich, well-educated, high-status parents could expect a much higher level of schooling than those with less-favored origins. Indeed, the closeness of the left-hand and right-hand bars in Figure 2-1 shows that only a small portion of the ob­ served social class differences in educational attainment is related to IQ differences across social classes. The dependence of education attained on background is almost as strong for individuals with the same IQ as for all individuals. Thus, while Figure 2-1 indicates that an individual in the nineti­ eth percentile in social class background is likely to receive five more years of education than an individual in the tenth percentile; it also indicated that he is likely to receive 4.25 more years schooling than an individual from the tenth percentile with the same IQ. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 429

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Education’s economic payoff has little to do with measured IQ for most people — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 213; Class-based educational inequality persists almost unchanged when IQ is held constant

Broader Connections

• Education’s economic payoff has little to do with measured IQ for most people #corroborates (0.85) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 213
• Class-based educational inequality persists almost unchanged when IQ is held constant #qualifies (0.80)