john eden
male pale and stale
In the main they are selected for their televisual attributes rather than their business acumen.
It's very similar to Oxbridge, in fact.
D
droid
Guest
They are successful, rich, educated people who are also total idiots.
Its difficult for even the most intelligent person to develop their intelligence if they cant afford to go to school beyond primary as they need to contribute to their household instead.
The idea of the meritocracy is a classist self-serving myth.
This is all so obvious that I'm beginning to suspect that you are working class.
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Yes, in the same way that tall people genetically inherit Long Tall Sally loyalty cards and basketballs.
john eden
male pale and stale
See I don't even know what Long Tall Sally is, does that make me intelligent or ignorant?
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Yes, but idiots would obviously comprise a smaller proportion of these people than they would of unsuccessful, poor, uneducated people. (I'm talking about the UK here)
Do you mean that the purported meritocracy doesn't actually reward those of more merit or that there are no intrinsic differences in merit and so a meritocracy can never apply?
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
What percentage of working class people in the UK does that apply to, though.
The idea that class is perpetuated purely by economic exclusion and divided along lines of income seems like a fairly dramatic oversimplification these days...
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
I don't think they were ever that fussy on Morse.
You do know you have to pass exams well etc to get into a good university - it's not just about the secret handshake.
john eden
male pale and stale
You certainly have to pass the entrance exams and the interview yes. Which people who go to public school are specifically trained for, and the rest of us are not.
Obviously they are genetically predisposed to being able to perform well in these exams and interview tho, so I don't know why the schools bother.
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Well, sticking specifically to what Droid said, at my high school most of the kids from poorer families were working part-time from 13/14 onwards, which must have some impact on how much time and energy you have for studying etc. I was lucky enough not to have to work regularly until I was 16, and I still found the process of juggling commitments hard to adjust to.
Having said that, I can take your point that class in general is more complicated than it used to be.
Will try and comment on the main debate that is happening with m_b versus most of the rest once I've actually read the article.
IdleRich
IdleRich
I didn't go to public school but my maths teacher did offer to give people practice for the Oxbridge exams and interview. I guess that that was just out of the goodness of his heart and a genuine interest in his pupils and also the type of problems involved so it's definitely the exception rather than the rule.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
Tbh, slating posho oxbridge admissions tutors for rejecting anyone without a title and an estate in Derbyshire seems like something that the government trot out to emphasize the point that there are obviously ABSOLUTELY NOT massive inequalities all the way down the education system...
john eden
male pale and stale
Quite clearly working class people do get admitted to Oxbridge. I happen to know one very well - she felt very out of place there, though. Must have been her chromosomes.
Slothrop
Tight but Polite
I'm not saying that there isn't massive class imbalance at oxbridge, just that it's not entirely because working class kids are being treated brilliantly by society and the education system and on the road to being top acheivers until an evil and slightly camp admissions tutor quaffing cognac in a smoking jacket crushes their nascent ambitions. And that focussing on the oxbridge interview process provides a nice easy scapegoat for people who don't want to do anything about the bigger picture.
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
Okay, well having given that a read, here's some initial thoughts. I would have to say that I was a bit concerned about the 'how God made them' comment and would be interested to know how literally he meant it, it's hard to tell without full context. But the main thing that struck me relates to what Martin mentioned - that Woodhead hasn't really specified what he means by 'intelligence'. Some of his comments seem to indicate that he's referring to what one would informally call 'book smarts' and perhaps to an interest in theoretical knowledge, but surely we would all agree that intelligence is more complicated and that there's a lot more too it than this?
As for introducing selection, even if for the sake of argument we allow that this is an acceptable idea, intuitvely the end of primary school seems like too young an age to set it, some children won't have sufficiently matured for it to fair.
I've certainly no objection to more opportunities being provided for the teaching of practical skills to teenagers, but don't feel that this is something that people should be forced or pushed into, obviously that would be something that further enforced class and economic divisions.
As for introducing selection, even if for the sake of argument we allow that this is an acceptable idea, intuitvely the end of primary school seems like too young an age to set it, some children won't have sufficiently matured for it to fair.
I've certainly no objection to more opportunities being provided for the teaching of practical skills to teenagers, but don't feel that this is something that people should be forced or pushed into, obviously that would be something that further enforced class and economic divisions.
mixed_biscuits
_________________________
Yes, I know of other people who felt the same way, for the same reasons.
It is certain that more able yet worse-prepared students can lose out to less able, better-prepared ones.
The solution is either to set subjects tests that are hard to prepare for (because they have fiendish questions that require ppl to think on their feet rather than requiring regurgitation of recondite material) or use metrics that judge some inherent property of the candidate that may be otherwise partly obscured (such as IQ).
By making the upper grades more accessible, the education system negates the advantages that high ability might confer to the ostensibly unappealing candidate and plays into the hands of candidates who have been trained to play the social game.
Tentative Andy
I'm in the Meal Deal
My basic ideas about intelligence, genetic endowment and childhood environment, based on absolutely no scientific research whatsoever -
I have doubts that there can be one single definition of 'intelligence' that covers all the common uses of the concept. The closest I think we can come to one that is general enough yet still contentful is to define it as a basic capacity to learn, to adsorb information and make use of it, probably with some reference to the speed of this process. It would make sense if this capacity was at least partially genetically inherited, and related at base to properties of the brain.
There is a potential argument that this basic skill will always come bundled with some innate specification to a domain - we see this in our talk of people having more practical or more theoretical minds, more artisic or more scientific minds, etc. I am genuinely unsure about the evidence for or against this claim.
What is clear, however, is that whether or not intelligence is innately tied to an object, the environment a child grows up in, which will include the influence of family, wider community and education, will to some extent limit and direct their intelligence towards certain objects, some of which will happen to be favoured by society and the economy at certain times, some of which will not. It is in this way that a gap between intelligence and success can arise.
I have doubts that there can be one single definition of 'intelligence' that covers all the common uses of the concept. The closest I think we can come to one that is general enough yet still contentful is to define it as a basic capacity to learn, to adsorb information and make use of it, probably with some reference to the speed of this process. It would make sense if this capacity was at least partially genetically inherited, and related at base to properties of the brain.
There is a potential argument that this basic skill will always come bundled with some innate specification to a domain - we see this in our talk of people having more practical or more theoretical minds, more artisic or more scientific minds, etc. I am genuinely unsure about the evidence for or against this claim.
What is clear, however, is that whether or not intelligence is innately tied to an object, the environment a child grows up in, which will include the influence of family, wider community and education, will to some extent limit and direct their intelligence towards certain objects, some of which will happen to be favoured by society and the economy at certain times, some of which will not. It is in this way that a gap between intelligence and success can arise.