Rewarded school traits correlate negatively with creativity among elite students

Evidence

These results are not in themselves surprising. It is to be expected that students will be rewarded for their conformity to the social order of the school (Citizenship) as well as their personal motivation to succeed within the nexus of this social order (Drive to Achieve). Only the most naive would expect school grades to depend on scholastic achievement alone. … But what do Citizenship and Drive to Achieve really reflect? In a liber­ ated educational encounter, we would expect these traits to embody some combination of diligence, social popularity, creativity, and mental flexibil­ ity. Yet statistical analysis of the Holland data reveals a strikingly different pattern. Students who are ranked by their teachers as high on Citizenship and Drive to Achieve are indeed more likely to be diligent (e.g., they arc high on such measures as Deferred Gratification, Perseverance, and Con­ trol) and socially popular (e.g., they are high on Social Leadership and Popularity). But they are, in fact, significantly below average on measures of creativity and mental flexibility (e.g., they are low on such measures as Cognitive Flexibility, Complexity of Thought, Originality, Creativity, and Independence of Judgment). — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 509

Categorization

• XREF: Reinforces the reproduction-of-hierarchy argument that recurs across this book: the traits schools select for map onto worker attitudes employers want. — connects to: Grades reward social conformity more than cognitive achievement — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 495; Teacher-rated citizenship traits are inversely related to creativity and mental flexibility. — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America:…, 510
• DEEPTHINKING: This inverts the school’s stated meritocratic purpose: sorting rewards submission, and the traits it cherishes are negatively correlated with the intellectual virtues it claims to cultivate — worth sitting with.

Broader Connections

• Teacher-rated citizenship traits are inversely related to creativity and mental flexibility. #corroborates (0.92) — Samuel Bowles and Herbert Gintis, Schooling in Capitalist America, 510