Working class has lower IQ
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The working classes have lower IQs than those from wealthier backgrounds and should not be expected to win places at top universities, an academic has claimed.
Bruce Charlton, reader in evolutionary psychiatry at Newcastle University, suggested that the low numbers of working-class students at elite universities was the "natural outcome" of IQ differences between classes.
In a paper shown to the Times Higher Education magazine, Dr Charlton questioned the Government's drive to get more students from poor backgrounds into top universities like Oxford and Cambridge.
He said: "The UK Government has spent a great deal of time and effort in asserting that universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, are unfairly excluding people from low social class backgrounds and privileging those from higher social classes.
"Yet in all this debate a simple and vital fact has been missed: higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes."
The fact that so few students from poor families get into Oxbridge is not down to "prejudice" but "meritocracy", he said.
The Government criticised Dr Charlton's comments. Higher education minister Bill Rammell said: "These arguments have a definite tone of 'people should know their place'.
"There are young people with talent, ability and the potential to benefit from higher education who do not currently do so. That should concern us all."
Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union, said: "It should come as little surprise that people who enjoy a more privileged upbringing have a better start in life.
"It is up to all of us to ensure that not having access to the social and educational benefits that money provides is not a barrier to achieving one's full potential."
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ha ha ha
There are many ppl full of themselves all the time...
if you go around listening to these so called " academics ", sooner or later, you will go hang yourself...
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meritocracy is a one dimensional measure of a persons capability
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Originally posted by Ferret:
ha ha ha
There are many ppl full of themselves all the time...
if you go around listening to these so called " academics ", sooner or later, you will go hang yourself...
ha ha ha ha -
This is related to the earlier proposal by UCAS to limit the number of children of graduates who enrol.
The academic does not sound politically correct, but what he says serves to highlight a serious shortcoming in British education - where's the help that the less privileged kids need when they're still young? You can't just let them do poorly and then grant them places in university where they can't cope without having standards compromised in their favour. Instead the money goes into the pockets of chavs and other bums.
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I felt like slapping that "Bruce"
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doesnt work this way here in Singapore... the working class produces the top academics...
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Well...in my opinion, his research may or may not be accurate....but it is irrelevant...
I think we humans cannot function from pure rationality.
It does not matter that students from poorer families have lower IQs. We as humans would like to help everyone especially people who are poorer. We have something other than research reports to base our decisions, something called empathy, emotion, love.
Just look at the article above, the 2 responses there, were emotionally-based responses, and not rationality-based responses.
This reminds me of a certain similar theme sometime back ago....about how we should think of ways to cut cost in medicine....especially old people who are dying...
Those academics, policymakers, etc, they forgot 1 very important aspect of their study. Humanity cannot function from pure rationality.
Meat Pao.
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then i guess most singaporeans are dumb, acc. to the report.
i can't afford to go cambridge/ oxford....:(
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not sure abt IQ...
but i know their EQ is damn low...
just look at the way they take public transport...
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IQ popularly believed to measure "general intelligence" (especially in LKY time), measures only academic intelligence.
If the parents are working class, it is likely they did not excel academically.
Hence concluding the working class has lower IQ is the same as saying the working class has lower performance in academic tests.
IQ = academic intelligence
IQ is not equal to a mysterious "G" general intelligence.
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Originally posted by Kuali Baba:
The academic does not sound politically correct, but what he says serves to highlight a serious shortcoming in British education - where's the help that the less privileged kids need when they're still young? You can't just let them do poorly and then grant them places in university where they can't cope without having standards compromised in their favour. Instead the money goes into the pockets of chavs and other bums.
Spot on, KB. As kilua notes, the oft-missed point of IQ measurement is that it's dependent on a base of knowledge - nobody's yet been able to measure Spearman's g. Taking the point that all things being equal, better education equals higher IQ, Charlton's simply stating the obvious. I'd be interested to see his article in full, but making the reported point is useless unless Charlton's taken it to the conclusion that the effort is better spent on earlier education rather than on opening the gates way too late.
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Okay folks, here's the article. It's certainly not what the headlines in The Telegraph and other bog rolls make it out to be.
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KB, the link took me to the Rebecca Atwood article - did you manage to find Charlton's original article? There's a good chance that only part of Charlton's paper was taken and twisted into a whole new story.
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It's in the link under 'Related Files' on the right-hand side...which is this Word document.
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politically incorrect maybe but it makes some sense... and it's not as simple as throw lots of money at it... the uk is a lot bigger than SG, SG is smaller than London... The problem lies in communities and the families rather than the kids themselves - a hell of a lot of kids from 'working class' environments often don't get the encouragement to perform that others do and thus think it's ok to mess around at school and not learn anything - when you get that in entire communities that attitude can engulf an entire school system for that area, and thus no matter what the teachers do the classes will almost always have an ehr of 'i don't care', because they want to drop out after GCSEs anyway, making it difficult for those who want to learn to learn, however usually those who want to do. And they do get into the uni they want to. It's the same for the areas where people are aiming to get past A levels - it'll still be the people who work hard who make it to the big unis. His statement may be a little too sweeping but as a trend it's true - those from areas that don't expect degrees generally won't get them and those from areas that do will... sad but true. the ball lies in the parents court and if they're not gonna help their kids then what are kids gonna do?
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Originally posted by Kuali Baba:
It's in the link under 'Related Files' on the right-hand side...which is this Word document.
Article from your link pasted below for reference:
Social class differences in IQ: implications for the government’s ‘fair access’ political agenda
Bruce G Charlton
Since ‘the Laura Spence Affair’ in 2000, the UK government has spent a great deal of time and effort in asserting that universities, especially Oxford and Cambridge, are unfairly excluding people from low social class backgrounds and privileging those from higher social classes. Evidence to support the allegation of systematic unfairness has never been presented, nevertheless the accusation has been used to fuel a populist ‘class war’ agenda.
Yet in all this debate a simple and vital fact has been missed: higher social classes have a significantly higher average IQ than lower social classes.
The exact size of the measured IQ difference varies according to the precision of definitions of social class – but in all studies I have seen, the measured social class IQ difference is substantial and of significance and relevance to the issue of university admissions.
The existence of substantial class differences in average IQ seems to be uncontroversial and widely accepted for many decades among those who have studied the scientific literature. And IQ is highly predictive of a wide range of positive outcomes in terms of educational duration and attainment, attained income levels, and social status (see Deary – Intelligence, 2001).
This means that in a meritocratic university admissions system there will be a greater proportion of higher class students than lower class students admitted to university.
What is less widely understood is that – on simple mathematical grounds – it is inevitable that the differential between upper and lower classes admitted to university will become greater the more selective is the university.
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There have been numerous studies of IQ according to occupational social class, stretching back over many decades. In the UK, average IQ is 100 and the standard deviation is 15 with a normal distribution curve.
Social class is not an absolute measure, and the size of differences between social classes in biological variables (such as health or life expectancy) varies according to how socio-economic status is defined (eg. by job, income or education) and also by how precisely defined is the socio-economic status (for example, the number of categories of class, and the exactness of the measurement method – so that years of education or annual salary will generate bigger differentials than cruder measures such as job allocation, postcode deprivation ratings or state versus private education).
In general, the more precise the definition of social class, the larger will be the measured social class differences in IQ and other biological variables.
Typically, the average IQ of the highest occupational Social Class (SC) - mainly professional and senior managerial workers such as professors, doctors and bank managers - is 115 or more when social class is measured precisely, and about 110 when social class is measured less precisely (eg. mixing-in lower status groups such as teachers and middle managers).
By comparison, the average IQ of the lowest social class of unskilled workers is about 90 when measured precisely, or about 95 when measured less precisely (eg. mixing-in higher social classes such as foremen and supervisors or jobs requiring some significant formal qualification or training).
The non-symmetrical distribution of high and low social class around the average of 100 is probably due to the fact that some of the highest IQ people can be found doing unskilled jobs (such as catering or labouring) but the lowest IQ people are very unlikely to be found doing selective-education-type professional jobs (such as medicine, architecture, science or law).
In round numbers, there are differences of nearly two standard deviations (or 25 IQ points) between the highest and lowest occupational social classes when class is measured precisely; and about one standard deviation (or 15 IQ points) difference when SC is measured less precisely.
I will use these measured social class IQ differences of either one or nearly two standard deviations to give upper and lower bounds to estimates of the differential or ratio of upper and lower social classes we would expect to see at universities of varying degrees of selectivity.
We can assume that there are three types of universities of differing selectivity roughly corresponding to some post-1992 ex-polytechnic universities; some of the pre-1992 Redbrick or Plateglass universities (eg. the less selective members of the Russell Group and 1994 Group), and Oxbridge.
The ‘ex-poly’ university has a threshold minimum IQ of 100 for admissions (ie. the top half of the age cohort of 18 year olds in the population – given that about half the UK population now attend a higher education institution), the ‘Redbrick’ university has a minimum IQ of 115 (ie. the top 16 percent of the age cohort); while ‘Oxbridge’ is assumed to have a minimum IQ of about 130 (ie. the top 2 percent of the age cohort).
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Table 1: Precise measurement of Social Class (SC) – Approx proportion of 18 year old students eligible for admission to three universities of differing minimum IQ selectivity
Ex-poly - IQ 100 Redbrick - IQ 115 Oxbridge IQ 130
Highest SC– av. IQ 115 84 percent 50 percent 16 percent
Lowest SC– av. IQ 90 25 percent 5 percent ½ percent
Expected SC diff 3.3 fold 10 fold 32 fold
Table 2: Imprecise measurement of Social Class (SC) – Approx proportion of 18 year old students eligible for admission to three universities of differing minimum IQ selectivity
Ex-Poly - IQ 100 Redbrick - IQ 115 Oxbridge - IQ 130
Highest SC –av. IQ 110 75 percent 37 percent 9 percent
Lowest SC –av. IQ 95 37 percent 9 percent 1 percent
Expected SC diff 2 fold 4 fold 9 fold
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When social class is measured precisely, it can be seen that the expected Highest SC to Lowest SC differential would probably be expected to increase from about three-fold (when the percentages at university are compared with the proportions in the national population) in relatively unselective universities to more than thirty-fold at highly selective universities.
When using a more conservative assumption of just one standard deviation in average IQ between upper (IQ 110) and lower (IQ 95) social classes there will be significant differentials between Highest and Lowest social classes, increasing from two-fold at the ‘ex-poly’ through four-fold at the ‘Redbrick’ university to nine-fold at ‘Oxbridge’.
In other words, according to social class definitions, the average child from the highest social class is from nine-to-thirty times more likely to qualify for admission to a highly selective university than the average child from the lowest social class.
Naturally, this simple analysis is based on several assumptions, each of which could be challenged and adjusted; and further factors could be introduced. However, the take-home-message is simple. When admissions are assumed to be absolutely meritocratic, social class IQ differences of plausible magnitude lead to highly significant effects on the social class ratios of students at university when compared with the general population.
Furthermore, the social class differentials inevitably become highly amplified at the most selective universities such as Oxbridge.
Indeed, it can be predicted that around half of a random selection of kids whose parents are among the IQ 130 ‘cognitive elite’ (eg. with both parents and all grandparents successful in professions requiring high levels of highly selective education) would probably be eligible for admission to the most-selective universities or the most selective professional courses such as medicine, law and veterinary medicine; but only about one in two hundred of kids from the lowest social stratum would be eligible for admission on meritocratic grounds.
In other words, with a fully-meritocratic admissions policy we should expect to see a differential in favour of the highest social classes relative to the lowest social classes at all universities, and this differential would become very large at a highly-selective university such as Oxford or Cambridge.
The highly unequal class distributions seen in elite universities compared to the general population are unlikely to be due to prejudice or corruption in the admissions process. On the contrary, the observed pattern is a natural outcome of meritocracy. Indeed, anything other than very unequal outcomes would need to be a consequence of non-merit-based selection methods.
Selected references for social class and IQ:
Argyle, M. The psychology of social class. London: Routledge, 1994. (Page 153 contains tabulated summaries of several studies with social class I IQs estimated from 115-132 and lowest social classes IQ from 94-97).
C.L. Hart et al. Scottish Mental Health Survey 1932 linked to the Midspan Studies: a prospective investigation of childhood intelligence and future health. Public Health. 2003; 117: 187-195. (Social class 1 IQ 115, Social class V IQ 90; Deprivation category 1 – IQ 110, deprivation category 7 – IQ 92).
Nettle D. 2003. Intelligence and class mobility in the British population. British Journal of Psychology. 94: 551-561. (Estimates approx one standard deviation between lowest and highest social classes).
Validity of IQ – See Deary IJ. Intelligence – A very short introduction. Oxford University Press 2001.
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I think no matter rich or poor, the top dogs (in terms of grades) should get the places.
The UK thinking was doing a reverse discrimmination, where the ' richer/ graduate born'' needs a HIGHER GRADE to get into the same place, i dun think that is the right way to go.
Athought the poorer, less well off should be given chances, but it dun think it will be fair to everyone, when we start discriminating against any group.
Thus the best way would be the addmission of people BY GRADE, not by any social class.
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Originally posted by deathmaster:
then i guess most singaporeans are dumb, acc. to the report.
i can't afford to go cambridge/ oxford....:(
Most Singaporeans act dumb, according to my observations. They don't know this and that. "I don't know" their favourite phrase.
Know how to do PowerPoint? "I don know"
Know how to do month end report? "I don know"
How come computer no picture no sound? "I don know"
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Originally posted by snowfoxx:
I think no matter rich or poor, the top dogs (in terms of grades) should get the places.
The UK thinking was doing a reverse discrimmination, where the ' richer/ graduate born'' needs a HIGHER GRADE to get into the same place, i dun think that is the right way to go.
Athought the poorer, less well off should be given chances, but it dun think it will be fair to everyone, when we start discriminating against any group.
Thus the best way would be the addmission of people BY GRADE, not by any social class.
Well that's the way it works out anyway... the debate is how many people from each social class get those top grades not anything else.
And there has been no suggestion that the rich need higher grades. Some universities look down on private schools here because they tend to teach for pupils to take exams rather than teach pupils to learn and thus those from a private school background with good grades can often do worse in uni than people from public schools with the same grade. but that said there are many of a poorer background in private schools and many richer in public... so that's not really relevant to the matter in hand.
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Ha! What a sham! Charlton writes about social class not being an absolute measure, but conveniently glosses over the fact that IQ is by definition a relative score. He's arguing for tightening the screws on the stern while the bow could be leaking like a sieve. Given that different tests produce different scores for each person, it's very foolish of him to take IQ scores as a self-evident fulcrum upon which to base the rest of his argument. Guess he doesn't have a very high IQ.
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IQ scores aside, i would think its getting harder for working class to to climb the social ladder in Singapore.
Academic performance is increasingly dependent on the "army of tutors" a student has.Being born in a high social class gives advantage to resources available for private instruction.
I remembered years back NUS produced a study to show private tuition had no effect on improving school grades. But is it a case of seeing what they want to see - IQ is the dominant factor affecting grades and family background gives little advantage in academic performance.
If the study could select only
i)competent teachers and
ii) motivated students
rather than a general sample, would the conclusion be the same?
After all
i)competent teachers and
ii) unmotivated students
or
i)incompetent teachers and
ii) motivated students
produce little effect on improving the grades of the student.
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Most Singaporeans act dumb, according to my observations. They don't know this and that. "I don't know" their favourite phrase.
correction..most singaporeans are dumb. they dont need to act..they are natural talents at it. why are we singaporeans so dumb??MOE policies made us unthinking exams machines...
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What is all the hype about IQ? Still living in the industralised age huh? Now people talk about FQ already. Financial Intelligence.
So what if you are very smart and earns the same as your average Joe collegue? Sia suay right? Hahaha... Jokes aside.
Sometimes we humans are really dumb asses. 24hrs a day nothing to do like to measure this and that.
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Surely FQ would stand for Financial Quotient and thus your abbreviation should really be FI? IQ = Intelligence Quotient