Working classes 'have lower IQs'

[mixed_biscuits]

mixed_underscore_biscuits - your poetic license is hereby revokled!

You'll have to have your secretarial qualification revokled too!

 

[noel emits]

Pfft, who needs a qualification to secrete?

(A license to spill?)

 

[Mr. Tea]

Pfft, who needs a qualification to secrete?

(A license to spill?)

PCSE?

Spray-levels?

Batchelor of Farts?

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah, they've tried a pilot scheme in Bridgend. Be interesting to see how that works out.

I think it'd only be fair to make allowances for local cultural traditions - maybe swap haikus for txt-spk gang boasts posted on MySpace?

 

[UFO over easy]

Pfft, who needs a qualification to secrete?

(A license to spill?)

you should be ashamed of yourself noel

 

[noel emits]

There is tremendous skill in being able to elegantly and evocatively convey the maximum in meaning and nuance over the medium of TXTS.

 

[noel emits]

you should be ashamed of yourself noel

I would be but Tea just completely out-punned me. I feel exonerated and free to get on with my life.

 

[Slothrop]

Yeah, and I was amused that The Guardian, when they reported this, contrasted the views of Dr Charlton with the president of the NUS, the general secretary of the UCU, and Bill Rammel, who all obviously have authoritative perspectives on evolutionary psychology.

Anyway, I think that it's a lot more socio-cultural than genetic. That's the only way to explain the mass migration of my parent's generation from poverty to comfortable middle class afluence, IMHO.

The point that he's making isn't a particularly psychological one anyway, though - pretty much the only psychological point he makes is that with a meritocratic selection process, there'd be a strong correlation between your IQ and how sought-after a university you can get into.

Beyond that it's basically a statistical argument that the class distribution of students is basically consistent with the hypothesis that the universities are selecting them based on their IQ without further class bias.

The elephant in the room being the obvious issues raised by the fact that there's a correlation between social class and IQ at age 18, and he basically doesn't have anything to say on that subject. I think if he'd finished by saying something to the effect of "the government should be doing something serious about the inequalities in the earlier stages of education and the increasing social stratification that are at the root of the problem rather than having a ill-informed bash at an easy target to make it look like they're doing something" then what he was actually saying in the report would have been clearer, but that would technically be veering off the topic of his paper and away from the conclusions that he can draw from his evidence into his political views...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Free lego and tuna sandwiches for all kids from underprivileged or otherwise 'at risk' backgrounds. Problem solved. (That's free lego, and free tuna sandwiches, obviously, not free lego-and-tuna sandwiches. That'd be stupid.)

 

[mixed_biscuits]

IQ will always correlate positively with higher social status - people (aim to) rise to their level.

How do you think people doing menial jobs fail to get better paid jobs in the first place?

 

[vimothy]

....I think if he'd finished by saying something to the effect of "the government should be doing something serious about the inequalities in the earlier stages of education and the increasing social stratification that are at the root of the problem rather than having a ill-informed bash at an easy target to make it look like they're doing something" then what he was actually saying in the report would have been clearer, but that would technically be veering off the topic of his paper and away from the conclusions that he can draw from his evidence into his political views...

That's quite a sentence! But I'd be more impressed if the great and good interviewed by both the BBC and The Guardian (are they written by the same dude, or what?) admitted that the government just ain't very good at this sort of thing, and that rather than expecting them to be able to solve society's problems by waiving their magic policy wand and buying some new buildings, it might be an idea to look for the answers within ourselves.

 

[vimothy]

IQ will always correlate positively with higher social status - people (aim to) rise to their level.

How do you think people doing menial jobs fail to get better paid jobs in the first place?

Aspirations = v. important.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Aspirations = v. important.

Yes, and one would assume that those with most to gain are the best motivated.

 

[vimothy]

And that -- how much one has to gain -- is a matter of perception.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

And that -- how much one has to gain -- is a matter of perception.

Surely this is a case for getting on the big red ceteris paribus and just admitting that smarts do a great deal to determine social position?

 

[Slothrop]

IQ will always correlate positively with higher social status - people (aim to) rise to their level.

How do you think people doing menial jobs fail to get better paid jobs in the first place?

Yeah, but you'd have to be a bloody bright kid to significantly improve your parents' jobs for them...

 

[Mr. Tea]

Yeah, but you'd have to be a bloody bright kid to significantly improve your parents' jobs for them...

Eh? Surely m_b is talking only about kids improving their *own* career prospects? Not that schoolkids have careers as such, but improving their prospects relative to what they would be if they simply dossed about in school and came out with crap/no qualifications...

 

[vimothy]

I think there's tension.

If my grandparents were young now, would my parents make the leap from working class to middle class? Our culture is very different. Who knows, perhaps they would, but I doubt it.

 

[Mr. Tea]

I think there's tension.

If my grandparents were young now, would my parents make the leap from working class to middle class? Our culture is very different. Who knows, perhaps they would, but I doubt it.

Yes, I agree there does seem to have been a marked reduction in social mobility over the last generation. But how much of this is due to political and economic factors that the (various) government(s we've had over the past 30 years) have any direct control over - and how much is to do with such ineffable influences as media, popular culture and general zeitgeist? Not so long ago it was normal to want to better oneself through whatever means were available - I think inverted snobbery has a lot to answer for.

 

[vimothy]

Surely, if anything, the political and economic factors that should count against social mobility have decreased in the post war period. My grandad only got a job (painting asbestos onto the side of ships) because his name sounded suitably un-Catholic.

I think that it's more to do with the ineffable reasons that you suggest, though I do think that there's a big role for policy in all of this, and that the weirdly globalised, post industrial labour market plays a part too.