2014-12-11 12:41:40
School grades depend on genes
One of the factors that most influence our destiny is education. Education is the greatest family and social intervention in children’s lives; It is one of the biggest concerns of parents and it is also one of the social purposes that involves the most spending, since many countries (not Spain) invest more than 6% of GDP in it. Success or failure during the educational period directs each person along very different paths in life. What determines them?
I don’t think I’m wrong if I say that, in general, the majority believes that academic success depends, above all, on a good educational environment and personal effort. After all, you don’t learn mathematics if no one teaches it to you and if you don’t make an effort to learn it. Although qualities such as intelligence are important, they are not everything, and much less determine how far we can go. Even intelligence can be improved with effort and dedication and, therefore, genetics has little to say here: school grades are not inherited. It seems reasonable, therefore, to think that differences in academic success depend, above all, on the educational environment, which is why it is necessary to ensure true equality of educational opportunities.
However, as is fortunately becoming more and more common, opinions must always be contrasted with serious and rigorous studies, and abandoned if the results obtained in them so advise. Researchers from King College London and several universities in the US and Russia address this interesting question scientifically and try to find out to what extent the educational environment is a determinant of academic success. To do this, they analyze the scores obtained by 13,306 identical twins in the General Secondary Education Test, an exam that all students in the United Kingdom must pass at the end of the mandatory period of education, at 16 years of age. The results have recently been published in the prestigious journal Proceedings.
The study of identical twins is important because they have inherited the same variants of all genes. For this reason, if any characteristic depends strongly on these variants, it is expected that both twins will possess it equally. If, on the contrary, the specific characteristic does not depend on genes, it will show clear differences between the two twins. For example, characteristics that are highly dependent on genes are height and eye color, and it is true that identical twins (but not twin brothers) have the same eye color and the same height. This, however, does not happen between non-twin siblings.
Equal opportunities
Going back to the test scores, are they more similar between twin brothers than each other?
The results of the aforementioned studies indicate, in fact, that twin siblings obtain scores that are much more similar to each other than those of non-twin siblings. This indicates that school grades are dependent on psychological and cognitive factors, which, in turn, largely depend on genes. What are these factors?
Researchers analyze several of those whose dependence on genetic inheritance is suspected. Among them, of course, include intelligence, but also other important elements to be successful in studies, such as personal efficiency and order, one’s personality style (introvert or extrovert, for example), as well as the presence of social behavior problems.
According to the data obtained, genetic inheritance explains no less than 62% of the grades in the most important subjects: language, mathematics and science. In other words, out of 100 pairs of twins, 62 get very similar scores. In fact, the genetic agreement in this aspect is even higher than the genetic agreement obtained in the personality factors considered in the study, including intelligence: good or bad grades seem to depend on genes to a greater extent than intelligence itself.
The conclusions of this work are doubly interesting. In addition to revealing the surprising fact that academic results and, consequently, greater or lesser success in life, depend to a large extent on each person’s genes, these data allow us to conclude that, despite the fact that the level of intelligence It is the most important heritable factor, other factors, also dependent on genes, collaborate with it to raise the degree of genetic dependence of each individual’s academic life together.
As always when a scientific study can shake our preconceived ideas, it is worth reflecting on its implications. The authors comment that their results invite us to ask how true equality of educational opportunities should be achieved. Perhaps equality does not consist of offering everyone the same educational environment and identical opportunities, since this, contrary to what has been assumed until now, will have the pernicious effect of exacerbating and manifesting more strongly each person’s genetic differences. On the other hand, perhaps true educational equality is achieved by creating pedagogical environments adapted to each person, which enhance the different genetic qualities of each person with the aim of forming adults willing and able to contribute to society with the best of themselves, which which would be an important step to live almost touching happiness.
NEW WORK BY JORGE LABORDA.
It can be purchased here:
Chained circumstances. Ed. Lulu
Other works by Jorge Laborda
One Moon, one civilization. Why the Moon tells us that we are alone in the Universe
One Moon one civilization why the Moon tells us we are alone in the universe
The intelligence funnel and other essays
#Cienciaes.com #Genetics #passes #failures