Spoiler Alert: Smart Kids Become Successful Adults

itwbennett writes "Researchers from the University of Edinburgh set out to test the long-held assumption that kids who performed well in school at a young age carried that early success through to adulthood. And prove it they did! Specifically, 'Math and reading ability at age 7 may be linked with socioeconomic status several decades later.' Early success even correlates 'over and above associations with intelligence, education, and socioeconomic status in childhood.'"

Comments

Correlations

[T.E.D.]

Also correlated:

Math and reading ability at age 7 and socioeconomic status of the parents.

Socioeconomic status and socioeconomic status of the parents.

So has this study really shown anything other than the transitive property?

Re:Correlations

[AliasMarlowe]

Although the third-party blurb suggests some interesting conjectures, the article itself is hidden behind a paywall. It's hardly worth speculating on its content or statistical robustness or experimental rigor - other than noting that the social sciences tend to be less robust in their methods and mathematics than the physical sciences and engineering.

On the other hand...

[jones_supa]

...does being smart lead to a more stressful life? Realizing how much you still don't understand, grasping the bad state of some things in world, feeling the general existential pain and philosophizing things, and so on.

Re:On the other hand...

[CrimsonAvenger]

About a sixth of all residents [feedingamerica.org] don't get enough food.

Umm, no.

Article you link doesn't say that. It says a sixth of all residents are struggling with "hunger". If you've ever bothered to check, you'll know that "hunger" (aka "food insecurity") is defined as âoedo not always know where they will find their next meal.â

Note that that definition means that missing a meal a year would put you on the "hunger" list.

For that matter, you don't actually have to miss a meal, since "do not always know" doesn't actually imply missing a meal, just fear of same.

Any word on the edges of the distribution?

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It seems pretty unsurprising that superior academic achievement in childhood would, on average, lead to somewhat better professional outcomes, at least within the "what part of 'middle class' does your salary put you in" band of professional wage labor.

I'd be curious to know what the data look like at the extremes of the distribution, though: "The data suggest, for example, that going up one reading level at age 7 was associated with a £5,000, or roughly $7,750, increase in income at age 42." So, people who earn, say £60,000 probably had better average performance at school age than the £50k or £40k tiers. What about the people who earn £600,000? There aren't even enough reading levels available to explain that. Is the relationship nonlinear(with each incremental increase in early performance carrying a greater incremental increase in outcome?), does correlation simply break down above(and possibly below) a certain adulthood salary band?

That is not the problem

[SuperKendall]

However, there still is a big problem with kids in lower socioeconomic status obtaining higher grades

Not at all. There is a problem with how society teaches kids, and it's just the case that some richer parents can overcome this handicap for their children.

I was homeschooled at an early age. As part of that I did a number of things with groups of other homeschooled kids. Many of the parents were poor (my own included). But because schooling at home is so much more productive and meaningful most of the children did really well, and all of the ones I kept in contact with have done well later in life also.

There is no problem being poor and being able to learn. Kids can learn in so many ways, many of them costing nothing or being free. You simply have to get out of the way and enable the spirit of exploration which is natural, instead of trying to crush it via conformity.