School socioeconomic advantage buffers low-polygenic-score students from dropping out of math: the PGS-by-school-SES interaction on persistence is significant and negative¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study · associational r3 · q3
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? Low-PGS students were less likely to drop out of math in high-status schools than in low-status schools (interaction b = −0.304). → K. Paige Harden 2020 q3 i? Students with average education-PGS in low-SES schools completed about 1.6 advancing steps, a level seen in high-SES schools only at the very low end of the genetic distribution. → K. Paige Harden 2020

Evidence¶

K. Paige Harden 2020¶

K. Paige Harden, Benjamin W. Domingue, Daniel W. Belsky, Jason D. Boardman, Robert Crosnoe, Margherita Malanchini, Michel Nivard, Elliot M. Tucker-Drob and Kathleen Mullan Harris. (2020). Genetic associations with mathematics tracking and persistence in secondary school. npj Science of Learning. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-020-0060-2

q3 · i? · associational · r3

Poisson interaction model (Supplementary Table 4) of advancing steps on education-PGS by school status, reported in Results. The interaction was similar when including 9th-grade tracking as a covariate (b = −0.282). Figure 4b shows high-PGS students "persisted about equally" regardless of school status, while average-PGS students in low-SES schools completed 1.6 advancing steps.

"There was a signi ficant and negative interaction on mathematics persistence, such that low-PGS students were less likely to drop out of math if attending high-status schools as compared to low- status schools ( b = −0.304, SE = 0.074, 95% CI = [−0.443, −0.147];"

Discussion¶

Learner Variables¶

• Socioeconomic Status — moderator: an instructional effect differs by group

Related Claims¶

• School SES and education-PGS each predicted completing Calculus without a significant interaction, and even top-2% polygenic-score students rarely took Calculus — related
• Higher education polygenic scores predict persistence in mathematics coursetaking across four years of secondary school, robust to SES covariates, prior tracking, and school fixed effects — related
• A positive G×E interaction between the education PGS and SES indicates a favorable SES environment enhances the effect of offspring genome — reports the opposite