Första länken: Översikt av neurobiologin bakom det vi kallar intelligens. Notera namnet på tidsskriften.
Andra länken: Lättläst artikel om g-faktorn. Bläddra fram till diagrammet på s 5 om ni inte orkar läsa allt. Scientific American är en välrespekterad populärvetenskaplig tidsskrift.
Tredje länken: 40 sidor om g/IQ och sociala konsekvenser.
It is distinctly impolite to suggest that individual differences in ability have a biological basis[3,10]. The root fear is that evidence about the brain might be misconstrued as evidence about an individual’s or group’s inherent quality or fitness, in the sense of an immutable social and moral value[4,7]. Gould concluded[10] that there is no reliable evidence for “intelligence as a unitary, rankable, genetically based, and minimally alterable thing in the head”, and even less evidence that intelligence is associated with demographic variables, such as race or social class. For better or worse, however, recent progress in the psychometric, social psychological, cognitive neuroscientific and genetic study of human abilities has been dramatic.
In this review,we emphasize intelligence in the sense of reasoning and novel problem-solving ability (BOX 1). Also called FLUID INTELLIGENCE (Gf)[11], it is related to analytical intelligence[12]. Intelligence in this sense is not at all controversial, and is best understood at multiple levels of analysis (FIG. 1). Empirically,Gf is the best predictor of performance on diverse tasks, so much so that Gf and general intelligence (g, or general cognitive ability) might not be psychometrically distinct[13,14].Conceptions of intelligence(s) and methods to measure them continue to evolve, but there is agreement on many key points; for example, that intelligence is not fixed, and that test bias does not explain group differences in test scores[15]. Intelligence research is more advanced and less controversial than is widely realized[15–17], and permits some definitive conclusions about the biological bases of intelligence to be drawn.
The debate over intelligence and intelligence testing focuses on the question of whether it is useful or meaningful to evaluate people according to a single major dimension of cognitive competence. Is there indeed a general mental ability we commonly call “intelligence,” and is it important in the practical affairs of life? The answer, based on decades of intelligence research, is an unequivocal yes. No matter their form or content, tests of mental skills invariably point to the existence of a global factor that permeates all aspects of cognition. And this factor seems to have considerable influence on a person’s practical quality of life. Intelligence as measured by IQ tests is the single most effective predictor known of individual performance at school and on the job. It also predicts many other aspects of wellbeing, including a person’s chances of divorcing, dropping out of high school, being unemployed or having illegitimate children.
By now the vast majority of intelligence researchers take these findings for granted. Yet in the press and in public debate, the facts are typically dismissed, downplayed or ignored. This misrepresentation reflects a clash between a deeply felt ideal and a stubborn reality. The ideal, implicit in many popular critiques of intelligence research, is that all people are born equally able and that social inequality results only from the exercise of unjust privilege. The reality is that Mother Nature is no egalitarian. People are in fact unequal in intellectual potential—and they are born that way, just as they are born with different potentials for height, physical attractiveness, artistic flair, athletic prowess and other traits. Although subsequent experience shapes this potential, no amount of social engineering can make individuals with widely divergent mental aptitudes into intellectual equals.
First, making a change that improves the performance levels of all individuals will increase their differences in performance. For example, if a school hires better teachers and buys
better textbooks, all students may learn more but the better learners will improve the most because they will gain more from the new resources. Second, increasing all students’ opportunity (time) or motivation to practice a skill or develop a body of knowledge will increase individual differences in performance. Giving all individuals the same additional time to develop and practice a skill allows the better learners to improve the most (as long as there is no ceiling on how good performance can be). This explains why, when two sets of students differ in average IQ, the gap in the amount they have learned grows ever wider at each higher grade level. Third, more complex tasks produce bigger differences in task performance. As discussed earlier, they put a bigger premium on the quality and efficiency of a person’s learning and reasoning (g). This law explains why the knowledge gaps between students are largest in the most difficult academic subjects, especially math and science.
The three laws all involve changes that educational reformers advocate: improving all students’ performance, giving all students more time to learn, and providing students learning tasks that require more complex learning and less memorization. But all three produce exactly what reformers most want to avoid—bigger differences in student performance. These
constraints in reducing social inequality do not mean we should stop worrying about unequal opportunity. Nor, conversely, do they mean that we should lower all children’s performance, deny them learning time, or give them easier curricula just to make their performance more
equal. They mean only that we should recognize the limits to equalizing social conditions. A society can give its members the same political and legal rights, but it can never give them the same abilities and ambitions. It therefore cannot eradicate socioeconomic inequality without limiting human freedom and aspiration.
Elever med högskoleutbildade föräldrar når bättre resultat på alla delprov. Den bakgrundsfaktor som slår igenom mest på resultaten är moderns utbildningsnivå. De elever vars moder endast har grundskoleutbildning hade genomgående svårare att klara kravnivåerna.
Mönstret finns i alla ämnen men är mest märkbart i matematik där det som mest skiljer 20 procentenheter mellan elever med grundskoleutbildade respektive högskoleutbildade mödrar. Den genomsnittliga skillnaden för delproven i matematik avseende moderns utbildningsnivå är 16 procentenheter. I engelska och svenska är den motsvarande skillnaden 12 respektive 8 procentenheter.
Med tanke på det starka sambandet mellan g/IQ och utbildningsnivå är det sannolikt att de högskoleutbildade mödrarna i genomsnitt har högre IQ än de grundskoleutbildade mödrarna. Intelligens är en egenskap som värderas relativt högt vid val av partner. Kvinnor tar i allmänhet rätt stor hänsyn till partnerns sociala status ("Human Mating Strategies", Buss). Därför är det troligt att de högskoleutbildade kvinnornas män också är högskoleutbildade eller framgångsrika t ex inom näringslivet. Det är sannolikt att de högskoleutbildade kvinnornas män är intelligentare än genomsnittspersonen. Om båda föräldrarna har höga IQ-nivåer kommer deras barn, i genomsnitt, ha högre IQ-nivåer än barn som fötts av föräldrar med låga IQ-nivåer. (Det är dock värt att poängtera att barnen med intelligenta föräldrar inte nödvändigtvis kommer att vara intelligentare än föräldrarna - Regression toward the mean. ).
Av de tre delproven (engelska, svenska, matematik) bör matematikprovet ge den bästa indikationen på studentens g. Kan en delförklaring till de publicerade resultaten vara att de högskoleutbildade mödrarnas barn har bättre biologiska förutsättningar än barnen som är födda av de grundskoleutbildade mödrarna? Gunhild Bartholdsson, undervisningsråd på Skolverket, säger: "Det är tidigare känt att det ser ut så här i årskurs nio men vi har inte känt till att det går att man kan se skillnader så tidigt som i årskurs 5. Tanken är att skolan ska ha en kompensatorisk effekt och utjämna skillnader men de här resultaten visar att det finns betydande skillnader vad det gäller föräldrarnas utbildningsnivå." Om de biologiska förutsättningarna ligger bakom en del av skillnaderna i resultat, så bör man kunna se vissa skillnader redan då barnen är i treårsåldern.
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