School SES and education-PGS each predicted completing Calculus without a significant interaction, and even top-2% polygenic-score students rarely took Calculus¶

Claim · All claims
Evidence · 1 study (2 entries) · associational r2 · q3
Currency · newest study 2020 · not yet checked against its sources · not reviewed by a person

Subclaims¶

q3 i? School-SES and education-PGS each predicted taking Calculus but did not significantly interact; average-PGS students had roughly twice the Calculus chances in high-SES (11%) versus low-SES (6%) schools. → K. Paige Harden 2020 q3 i? Students with exceptional polygenic scores (top 2%) had only a 24% probability of taking Calculus in low-SES schools and 31% in high-SES schools. → K. Paige Harden 2020 (2)

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 · r2

Logistic regression of Calculus completion (Supplementary Table 6), reported in Results: "school-SES and the education-PGS each predicted taking Calculus, but they did not signi ficantly interact." The discussion concludes "the pipeline is leaking. Badly."

"Students with an average education-PGS had nearly twice the chances of taking Calculus in a high-SES school (11%) than in a low-SES one (6%). Calculus was rare even among students with exceptional polygenic scores (top 2%, or +2 SD above the mean): High-PGS students had a 24% probability"

K. Paige Harden 2020 (2)¶

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 · r2

Continuation of the same Results passage: among students in the top 2% of the education-PGS distribution (+2 SD), only 24% in low-SES schools and 31% in high-SES schools took Calculus, which the discussion reads as substantial room for improvement in developing potential STEM talent.

"of taking Calculus in a low-SES school and a 31% probability in a high-SES school."

Discussion¶

Related Claims¶

• 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 — 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
• The strength of the association between polygenic score and educational achievement does not differ across SES groups — related
• A positive G×E interaction between the education PGS and SES indicates a favorable SES environment enhances the effect of offspring genome — related
• Higher education polygenic scores predict placement into more advanced 9th-grade math courses, robust to family SES, school SES, and school fixed effects — related
• Education polygenic scores predict year-to-year math enrollment above and beyond prior-year math GPA, family SES, and school SES — related
• The education-PGS-by-school-SES interaction on 9th-grade math tracking was not statistically significant — related