especially Germany is a very poor example for this claim as school performance (PISA) in this country correlates with the parents academic background more than anything. if your parents aren't educated you can be intelligent AF and still will fail the German school system while you can be dumb as a brick but still make Abitur if your parents drill you through. in Germany.

and Welt is a media source with a right conservative agenda pushing the genetics narrative.

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holbrad 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

Surely this is completely logicalal if IQ is largely heritable.

The smarter richer parents are more likely (But not guaranteed) to have smarter children.

So it would be completely expected for the smarted person you know to come from a rich family even if their environment had no effect. (Though it likely does)

	▲	jacquesm 3 days ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> Surely this is completely logicalal if IQ is largely heritable. > So it would be completely expected for the smarted person you know Maybe we should make the occasionalal exception.
	▲	jdiff 3 days ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It's internally logically consistent, but inconsistent with the data when measured and controlled properly.

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robwwilliams 4 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Yes. The smartest kid in my elementary school in Blankenese, Hamburg, Germany (a filthy-rich neighborhood) was an asthmatic son of the stable master of Alex Springer. By far the smartest kid.

But he did NOT go to gymnasium. He was my best friend and I was furious at this social injustice. I was 10 and this was my first exposure to rigid class injustice. It still makes me mad. All of the other dumb rich kids from Blankenese went to gymnasium, me included.

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jacquesm 3 days ago | parent [-]

This is pretty common. In the 80s (when I went to high school in Europe) the best way to predict whether or not someone would go to Gymnasium or Athenaeum was to look at how wealthy their parents were. It is still exactly the same today.

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hadlock 3 days ago | parent [-]

I had to research what gymnasium meant, in the US that just means P.E. which is a class where you do generic sports for an hour each day.

Are you saying, in Germany, you can't choose to go academic route in primary/secondary school? The teachers and school decide if you will go into vocational school for mechanics, electrician, etc? That seems to imply class mobility is nearly zero in German education.

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jacquesm 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> I had to research what gymnasium meant, in the US that just means P.E. which is a class where you do generic sports for an hour each day.

Except... that's not it:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gymnasium_(school)

> Are you saying, in Germany, you can't choose to go academic route in primary/secondary school? The teachers and school decide if you will go into vocational school for mechanics, electrician, etc?

There is an end-of-the-year test for kids in what would be the 8th grade here (and this is not Germany, but the Netherlands), if your last year's teacher sucked or simply doesn't like you then you're off to the vocational school or at best HAVO because there are a limited number of slots for VWO (Athenaeum / Gymnasium).

> That seems to imply class mobility is nearly zero in German education.

It's not zero, but it isn't nearly where it should be, and again, my experience is mostly with NL. Merit matters but it certainly isn't everything and there are certain schools where the gatekeeping is very visible. One way in which this happens is by keeping the number of slots for the highest level artificially low in spite of demand. You then have the choice of moving out of a region to a location where there is room or to accept a lower grade of education for your children. This is very frustrating, especially because kids with the right last names of course always mysteriously get in.

The better schools have a system where they share the first year of high school between all of the pupils and only then do they give the option to choose which track a particular pupil wants to follow. But these are not in the majority.

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robwwilliams 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Sorry, yes “gynasium” is the academical track. There are two “lower” tracks. All decided when you are 11 years old!

Not sure uf this is still SOP but was in the 60s through ???.

	▲	froh 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		just to add: 11y old is in Berlin where the schooling branch is selected in 6th grade. it's at 9 years of age outside Berlin, during fourth grade.