Accounting for the shared environment in cognitive abilities and academic achievement with measured socioecological contexts.

ABSTRACT: Behavioral and molecular genetic research has established that child cognitive ability and academic performance are substantially heritable, but genetic variation does not account for all of the stratification of cognitive and academic outcomes across families. Which specific contexts and experiences contribute to these shared environmental influences on cognitive ability and academic achievement? Using an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse sample of N = 1728 twins ages 7-20 from the Texas Twin Project, we identified specific measured family, school, and neighborhood socioecological contexts that statistically accounted for latent shared environmental variance in cognitive abilities and academic skills. Composite measures of parent socioeconomic status (SES), school demographic compo

SUBMITTER: Engelhardt LE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6294670 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature