Comments on: Achievement Gaps

By: Jarvis

Jarvis — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 21:47:57 +0000

I'd still say that the parents have the more significant impact on their children's educational achievement. How they give their children guidance and their upbringing.I visited an interesting site I want to share with you the Young Entrepreneur Society from the www.YoungEntrepreneurSociety.com. A great documentary about successful entrepreneurs.

By: Dr. K.

Dr. K. — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 08:53:40 +0000

I am very interested in seeing the published version of this work!

By: Crimson Wifec

Crimson Wifec — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 01:29:59 +0000

It seemed a bit unclear to me from reading the press release whether the researchers actually looked at reading test scores vs. just the proxy of which reading group the child was in. The latter is problematic given that pushy parents will often pester teachers into moving their child to a higher group than is actually warranted.On the other hand, there are bright kids (particularly boys) who are just “late bloomers”. My DH didn’t learn to read until he was 7 but ended up graduating valedictorian of his high school class.

By: R N B

R N B — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 15:30:26 +0000

Thank you for clarifying. I have no disagreement with you, your comment reassures me further, but I question the tone of the original source material for precisely that reason. I’d guess that the relative emphasis that parents put onto reading diverse materials, questioning them, analysing them (probably functions of culture and religion – not of race) does have an impact on kids’ development and achievement.

By: Greg Laden

Greg Laden — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 14:09:15 +0000

In this case I would take “race” as a stand in for “identity” or “ethnic category” or something. Where you see “ethnic/racial” above, that is me substituting “ethnic/racial” for their “racial.” There is no evidence that genetically determined features that define “race” also define anything that would be measured by any of this evaluation or testing.

By: R N B

R N B — Fri, 14 Mar 2008 13:59:02 +0000

It is interesting, but I think the mention of race is misplaced and possibly misleading in this (not that I want to discard any race/achievement causality, just I think the effect may be small – let’s look at the achievement of adopted kids for proof). But what seems significant, what I think studies should emphasise, is the impact of culture, for example income or religion versus academic achievement. I have no conclusion here, but I think your ScienceBlogs colleague at “GeneExpression” quoted some studies on this for older kids just a few weeks ago (Feb 21).