Delayed tracking and inequality of opportunity: Gene-environment interactions in educational attainment.

ABSTRACT: There are concerns that ability tracking at a young age increases unequal opportunities for children of different socioeconomic background to develop their potential. To disentangle family influence and potential ability, we applied moderation models to twin data on secondary educational track level from the Netherlands Twin Register (N = 8847). Delaying tracking to a later age is associated with a lower shared environmental influence and a larger genetic influence on track level in adolescence. This is in line with the idea that delaying tracking improves equality of opportunity. Our results further suggest that this is mostly because delaying tracking reduces the indirect influence of family background on track level via the test performance of students. Importantly, delaying tracking im

SUBMITTER: Knigge A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9068802 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature