Family or Sibship Position and Scholastic Ability

Lees, Jan; Stewart, Adam

doi:10.1111/j.1467-954x.1957.tb01001.x

Cited by 21 publications

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“…However, there is a pattern in this variety. Studies that show the first born to have an advantage tend to be studies of educational success such as getting into grammar schools (Lees & Stewart, 1957), GCE results (Douglas, Ross & Simpson, 1968), and college attendance (Schacter, 1963). These also are obviously studies of older children.…”

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Family structure and educational achievement

1971

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This paper attempts a new look at an old problem. Throughout this century there have been many reports showing that certain characteristics of family structure are associated with the individual's performance in evaluative situations, be these IQ tests, tests of achievement, school and university examinations and even occupational success (for an excellent summary, see Anastasi, 1956). It is well known, for example, that children from large families tend not to do so well in such situations as children from small families, and that this phenomenon appears to be, in some degree, independent of socio-economic differences. This we can illustrate with our own data (Text- fig. 1) in which we see a steady decline in score on a nonverbal group test of intelligence as the size of the family increases. Less clear is whether other features of family composition, such as the spacing between siblings, the sex composition of the sibship and the ordinal position of the individual within the sibship, also affect achievement. (There is no lack of reports but, as we shall show, the evidence they provide is conflicting.)Such research as has been done tends to be centred around two types of problems each stemming from a different theoretical framework. The first was concerned with the relationship between fertility and intelligence and was dominated by the question as to whether a genetic pool of ability was being diluted by the over-production of the less intelligent. In other words, bright parents would tend to have bright children but were also having fewer children. The arguments for and against this hypothesis are now well known and we do not propose to elaborate them here (Anastasi, 1956).

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confidence: 99%