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What is mystery ingredient X?
Arnold Kling writes:
I don't think we have a recipe that says, "Take a child of two non-college educated parents, add primary education ingredient X, bake, and out comes a college-capable high school graduate." The mystery ingredient X has yet to be discovered.
Some Asian cultures or immigrant groups come close to finding this ingredient. It involves total parental commitment to the educational ideal and a willingness to enforce the notion that a non-educated child is shaming the entire family, not just the child. That said, I'm not sure that college education per se is the key here (and probably Arnold would agree; read his phrasing carefully). If you can bake up some low rates of time preference, you're coming pretty close to the real mystery ingredient.
Posted by Tyler Cowen on July 8, 2008 at 01:32 PM in Education | Permalink
Comments
Irving Fisher once put together a chart purporting to show the discount rates of various ethnic groups, and of course those then most successful were assigned the lowest rates. I don't remember what he had for Asians (or anyone else, for that matter), and nobody would now defend his apparent belief that discount rates are genetic, but he (and you) were certainly on to a key ingredient for success. I do some work with kids, almost all of whom are destined to be dirt poor all their lives. I often hear them claim that finishing school "just takes too long."
Posted by: Alan Gunn at Jul 8, 2008 1:56:30 PM
Many of the good scientists, engineers, thinkers, and writers of the past fifty years have come from lower-middle-class homes and/or from parents without a university education - the key back then seemed to be parents who read, and who encouraged their kids to inquire into the natural world. Trips to the library, sitting around talking about school, and instilling hope for the future - most of all a commitment to learning stuff for its own sake (rather than as a goal to get a job). I don't think it's rocket science, but on the other hand public education has a much bigger job to do these days, and fewer resources to do it with.
Posted by: Renee at Jul 8, 2008 2:09:21 PM
Tyler,
I believe you're absolutely correct; what was the statistic in yesterday's Washington Post, that Asians, who make up 16% of Fairfax County's population, will make up better than 50% of the freshman class at Thomas Jefferson HSST next fall.
Posted by: Dave Richardson at Jul 8, 2008 2:38:53 PM
I think as much as we want to deny the existence of a genetic component in this, that at least plays a partial role, both on the micro (family) and the macro (ethnicity/race) level --- we can't.
Posted by: Varangy at Jul 8, 2008 2:39:52 PM
The mystery ingredient X has yet to be discovered
IQ works nicely. Oh, I'm sorry, no one likes that answer so we'll pretend that there hasn't actually been massive amount of research in this area. Of course to be fair this answer is also not very useful if you're looking for ways to improve the system of primary education.
and nobody would now defend his apparent belief that discount rates are genetic
On the contrary, I will step up and say that they almost certainly have a strong genetic component. If you mean that no one would seriously defend the strawman that they are 100% genetically determined, well yeah, that's an easy one. But if the heritability of time preference proves to be less than 40% given a first-world environment I would be very surprised.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 8, 2008 2:52:07 PM
Tyler, I believe you're absolutely correct [...] Asians, who make up 16% of ... will make up better than 50% of the freshman class at Thomas Jefferson HSST
This doesn't help us apportion the credit between Asian culture and Asian genetic makeup. It's possible that Tyler is correct and that culture is the only or at least primary driver. But as always, if you actually wanted to know the answer instead of pretending bemusement at this baffling, baffling problem, it wouldn't take long to find some, you know, academic evidence.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 8, 2008 3:00:59 PM
Varangy: uhm, why? what "part" role does it play? Thanks for the trolling though.
Posted by: Steve at Jul 8, 2008 3:05:18 PM
I thought we agreed that ingredient X is flaxseed oil.
Posted by: meter at Jul 8, 2008 3:13:42 PM
public education has a much bigger job to do these days, and fewer resources to do it with.
Fewer resources? What do you mean by this? Spending on public education has generally increased over time. Did you have some other metric in mind?
But as for the job being bigger, yes. A person needs to learn quite a bit more than they used to in order to aspire to anything higher than a menial job.
Posted by: bbartlog at Jul 8, 2008 3:15:22 PM
My parents, both white (western European mix) found the formula fifty years ago.
Both were quite smart, both came from poor and dysfunctional families, and both were determined that the next generation would be college educated, and we are.
When my parents were young and still relatively poor they always found a couple of quarters to buy books for us kids, and as they became more affluent bought books and encyclopedias and etc. as often as possible.
They set up expectations and we followed.
And my grandchildren are now reading those books (and a few hundred more).
Posted by: save_the_rustbelt at Jul 8, 2008 3:17:21 PM
My dad had a plumber father and an Irish immigrant mother. He ended up an engineer. He went to a Catholic High School and then enrolled in a co-op program that allowed him to work himself through college. In my opinion, the active ingredient was genetics/IQ.
Posted by: Libra at Jul 8, 2008 3:23:04 PM
It's incorrect to focus on parenting style when trying to determine if culture has an effect on the degree of college education.
When the entire community expects you to be college educated, and when your status amongst your peers (especially potential mates) is determined by whether you go to college, you go to college.
That's how it works in the Asian immigrant community. That's how it works in other cultural environments (like Jews) where college participation is high.
Posted by: foo at Jul 8, 2008 3:37:51 PM
I think the "family shame" element is a big part of the key. The Chinese/Jewish argument that you shame your family and insult their sacrifices with your A-minus versus an A is a powerful argument, especially when mixed in with incessant comments about how the neighbor's/cousin's/etc kid made his parents so happy by bringing home the trophy in the latest academic contest.
Posted by: Foobarista at Jul 8, 2008 3:57:37 PM
The Chinese/Jewish argument that you shame your family and insult their sacrifices with your A-minus versus an A is a powerful argument...
This is a profound statement. My parents always framed their concern about middling-to-poor school performance as limiting my potential and shooting myself in the foot. It never got any traction with me and I graduated high school by the skin of my teeth. I wonder if I would have been a better student if they had acted as if their love was conditional on my grades. Sure I might be a neurotic mess, but I might also be a rich neurotic mess.
Posted by: Christina at Jul 8, 2008 4:40:50 PM
Peer effects. Likely explains a good portion of the asian/immigrant effect: if asians and immigrants are less likely to be involved with the more popular/partying/high discount rate crowd.
Posted by: scott at Jul 8, 2008 4:54:27 PM
Selection bias.
Posted by: at Jul 8, 2008 5:02:37 PM
Oh no! How can we possibly be expected to provide opportunities as if racially blind!?! As if...they were individuals! How could we possibly realize that there might be differences in averages, but that differences in means don't preclude greater variance in individuals?
The stupidity goes all the way up, by the way. My Asian advisor basically told me I couldn't do well at mathematical modeling because the classes were mostly Asian.
He didn't stop to ponder on my excellent record in mathematical modeling, or that maybe asians will fill classes where the language barrier is not a problem.
Posted by: Andrew at Jul 8, 2008 5:15:16 PM
Yeah, Kling's clearly correct. The G.I. Bill, for instance, produced a generation of college dropouts who did jack for the economy from 1948-1973 or so.
Posted by: Ken Houghton at Jul 8, 2008 5:41:11 PM
So "X" is fight a war? Man, that would be depressing.
Posted by: josh at Jul 8, 2008 6:13:30 PM
bbartlog says:
It's possible that Tyler is correct and that culture is the only or at least primary driver.
Culture and genetics are intertwined ... but I guess you already knew that ...
scott says:
Peer effects. Likely explains a good portion of the asian/immigrant effect: if asians and immigrants are less likely to be involved with the more popular/partying/high discount rate crowd.
Actually, it's more likely shared genes ...
Posted by: loki on the run at Jul 8, 2008 6:25:04 PM
What is the correlation between IQ and success in life, whether academic or otherwise?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8C48agMtV7I
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_James_Sidis
I'm sure I'm not alone in personally knowing people who are smart but never amount to much or people of average intelligence who are very successful because they are hardworking and tenacious.
There are other contributing factors such as access to resources, ambition, ability to concentrate for long periods of time, mental illness, emotional wellbeing, etc. that can often exert a greater influence on ones success in life than IQ.
Posted by: asiequana at Jul 8, 2008 6:46:54 PM
@asiequana:
"What is the correlation between IQ and success in life, whether academic or otherwise?"
Higher than the correlation between anything else we know of and success in life.
That's the thesis of "The Bell Curve," which demonstrated that on a wide variety of social outcomes (analyzed separately for blacks and whites because the inputs were significantly different), individually measured IQ was a substantially stronger predictor than family socioeconomic status.
Anecdotal counterexamples abound, but prove nothing.
Posted by: linda seebach at Jul 8, 2008 7:12:45 PM
If these immigrant groups adopted children, would you expect the same results? I certainly wouldn't.
Posted by: TGGP at Jul 8, 2008 7:32:28 PM
I know several people, including two of my cousins, who were adopted and raised by jewish families. All of them,
except my cousins, went to college or are in college. All of them, including my cousins, are at least moderately successful. Coming from a good family means even the screw
ups are moderately successful. Teddy Kennedy is the biggest screw up in his family and he's a senator.
Posted by: adam at Jul 8, 2008 8:42:06 PM
Tyler,
It would be so much easier for everybody if you'd just be honest and say, "Yes, sure, the Mystery Ingredient X is of course IQ, which we know is significantly genetic in origin, so there's nothing much we can do about that, outside of immigration policy. But there is still likely to be secondary ingredient Y and tertiary ingredient Z, and here's one of my guesses for what Y or Z might be ..."
Then, you wouldn't have to listen to commenters explain to you what you already know but are too timid to state.
Honesty is a much more productive policy.
Posted by: Steve Sailer at Jul 8, 2008 8:47:05 PM
