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  3. Do genes determine how well children will do at school? If so, are teachers

Do genes determine how well children will do at school? If so, are teachers

游客2023-12-02  29
问题     Do genes determine how well children will do at school? If so, are teachers and policy-makers wasting their time trying to raise academic standards amongst children who are born "not very bright"?
    These controversial, indeed uncomfortable, questions are raised by comments from the former Chief Inspector of Schools in England, Chris Woodhead. Now a Professor at Buckingham University, Mr. Woodhead has never been one to tiptoe around fundamental issues, however explosive they may be. In a newspaper interview, Mr. Woodhead said a child’s family background largely dictated educational success. He argued, less bright children should not be forced down the academic route but should be given practical and vocational training. The anecdotal evidence seems to be all around us. The children of parents who have done well in the academic education system seem, mostly, to do well themselves.
    But is it really true that our chances of being born bright or not so bright depend entirely on the academic success of our parents? This nature versus nurture question might seem insoluble. But thanks to a remarkable research project there is growing long-term evidence to suggest some insights.
    The 1970 Birth Cohort Survey has followed over 17,000 babies who were born in the U.K. during a particular week in April 1970. It has measured their medical, educational and social development at intervals since then. Leon Feinstein, from the Institute of Education at the University of London, has interrogated the educational results of the survey and produced some fascinating findings about how children’s ability levels vary relative to their peers over time.
    The children were tested for their educational development at 22 months, 42 months, and at age 5 and 10. Later they were assessed at age 26 to see what educational success they had achieved in public examinations. The striking picture that emerges is one where ability levels at the earliest age are a strong indicator of later educational success. Even when measured at just 22 months, children who started out in the lowest 25% of the ability range mostly remained stuck amongst the lowest achievers as adults. The pattern of future success is even more completely determined at 42 months, or just three and half years old, still well before the start of formal schooling. Over 25% of those who were in the bottom quartile of ability at this age failed to achieve any educational qualifications by the age of 26. By contrast, only 6% of the highest scoring 42-month olds failed to get qualifications by the time they were adults. So ability levels soon after birth are a very strong predictor of future educational success. So the deterministic view about genes appears to be borne out by the evidence so far. Educational achievement would appear to be set in stone well before children even start school.
    But wait, there is more. The evidence also shows that within this overall picture, there is a fair degree of movement. Children who start out in the least able group can, and do, progress all the way up to the most able group. For example, 10% of those children who were in the bottom 25% at 42 months had reached the top 25% by the age of 10. In other words, if they had been written off as starting out in life without the genetic advantages of high ability, their longer-term academic potential would have been wasted.
    Leon Feinstein’s research gets even more interesting for policy-makers when he starts to look at the impact of social class on all of this. His findings suggest that it is the combination of starting out in the lowest ability group, whilst also being in the lowest socio-economic group at birth, which more or less condemns a child to educational failure later in life. So, if you do badly in the developmental tests at 22 months, and your parents are in low-paid manual jobs, you are likely to remain on the bottom rungs of the educational ladder. However, children in the lowest ability groups at 22 months who are born into affluent and white-collar families do not remain stuck on the bottom levels of educational success. Indeed—and this is perhaps the most striking finding—the children from affluent families who started out in the bottom ability group overtake those from the poorest backgrounds who started out in the top ability group.
    In other words, it is true to say that the mental abilities you are born with do tend to shape your future academic success. However, it is also true to say that innate ability is not determined simply by your genetic inheritance, in terms of the socio-economic background of your parents. Whatever the starting point, subsequent educational success is more likely to go to those with affluent, middle-class parents. So Chris Woodhead may well be right if he is talking about children who have already reached secondary school. Yet early intervention, in the pre-school and early primary years could make a real difference by militating against social class factors which have held back bright children from poorer homes.  [br] It can be learned from the 7th paragraph that________.
选项 A、Feinstein knows what the policy-makers are interested in
B、both genes and family background affect people’s educational development
C、white-collar parents put more effort on their children’s education
D、early performance test can be wrong in some cases
答案 B
解析 推断题。文章第七段第二句和最后两句说，范士丹的研究结果表明，起点较低、生活在社会经济底层家庭中的孩子很难在教育方面取得成功。但有实例说明，即使起点较低，如果生活在富足家庭，这样的孩子仍然有可能超越起点高但家庭贫困的孩子，由此可见，基因不是决定孩子将来学业的唯一因素，家庭背景也同样重要，故[B]为正确答案。第七段首句提到，范士丹注意到社会阶层对孩子们的教育发展有影响，并指出决策者可能会对这一现象更感兴趣，但并没有说范士丹十分了解决策者的需求，故排除[A]；第七段第四句说明，富足的白领家庭的孩子在学业上成功的可能性更大，但并没有分析背后的原因，不能由此得出白领父母更加重视孩子的学习的结论，故排除[C]；文章并没有说早期的测试结果有问题，之所以部分起点低的孩子后来成就很高，或是部分起点高的孩子后来成就并不大，这是由孩子所在的家庭造成的，并不是说早期的测试不准确，故排除[D]。
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