Robust genetic nurture effects on education: A systematic review and meta-analysis based on 38,654 families across 8 cohorts

Wang, Biyao; Baldwin, Jessie; Schoeler, Tabea; Cheesman, Rosa; Barkhuizen, Wikus; Dudbridge, Frank; Bann, David; Morris, Tim; Pingault, Jean‐Baptiste

doi:10.1016/j.ajhg.2021.07.010

Cited by 71 publications

(83 citation statements)

References 55 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…The indirect genetic effects we observe in this study are lower than those observed for educational attainment measured based on degree completion. 9 They are consistent with previous analysis of exam or test performance in MoBa 19 and a Dutch 31 but not a UK cohort 17 .…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

“…It's important to emphasize that our results in no way imply parenting, a nurturing family environment, or, for example, advocating for a child in the educational environment, do not affect school performance. Our results merely shed light on the mechanism behind the widely observed indirect effect of parental education related PGI on offspring education outcomes 7,9,[15][16][17] . Any effects of parenting which are not related to the parental cognitive or non-cognitive skill PGI would not be detected in studies of the indirect genetic effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

“…Specifically, molecular-genetic studies of parent-offspring trios, of adopted parent-child dyads, and of biological siblings all show that people's EA is associated with the genes they did not inherit --an association that can only operate via the environment. [7][8][9][10] These studies use polygenic indices (PGI) of educational ability. The PGI method uses results from genome-wide association studies (GWAS) to score research participants' genomes to summarize the combined influence of hundreds of thousands of variants on a target trait or behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The significant prediction of education in adoptive offspring by the adoptive parents PGI cannot be explained by direct genetic transmission. Selzam et al 9,17 study siblings to show that the effect of the PGI on educational attainment within sibling pairs is lower than between sibling pairs, suggesting the presence of an indirect effect especially for high school exams but also for cognitive ability.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Neither nature nor nurture: Using extended pedigree data to understand indirect genetic effects on offspring educational outcomes

Nivard¹,

Belsky²,

Harden³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: More highly educated parents tend to raise children who go on to complete more education themselves. Strong evidence for environmental transmission arises from the fact that offspring outcomes correlate to parental genotypes even when controlling for the offspring genotype. The process that gives rise to an environmentally mediated correlation between parental genotype and offspring education (“indirect genetic effects”) remains poorly understood. A key question is whether intergenerational transmission reflects within-family processes, such as parenting behaviors (i.e. “Genetic nurture”), or social inheritance that could reflect either genetic ancestry or social stratification (i.e. “Dynastic effects”). Methods: We analyzed data from N = 25,215 genotyped parent-offspring trios participating in the Norwegian Mother, Father, and Child Cohort Study (MoBa), where many of the participants in the parental generation are siblings (N = 3,500 sibling pairs). We correlate genetic differences within the parental family, conditional on offspring genetics to offspring’s educational outcomes. The strategy isolates indirect genetic effects that play out in the nuclear family from indirect genetic effects that arise through social or ancestral genetic stratification. We additionally partition genetic variants associated with EA into those associated with cognitive versus non-cognitive skills. Results: We find that children’s genetics, measured using polygenic indices (PGIs) for cognitive and non-cognitive components of EA, are associated with their educational performance. Parents’ genetics are also associated with their children’s educational performance, over and above the child’s own genetics. However, we find no evidence that parents’ PGI are specifically related to offspring academic achievement over and above the average PGI of the siblings in the parental generation. Conclusions: Our result suggests that the effects of the environmental processes captured by genome-wide association studies of EA and characterized as “nurture” are explained less by parents’ specific behaviors and more by dynastic stratification in environments relevant to success in school.

show abstract

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 90%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Neither nature nor nurture: Using extended pedigree data to understand indirect genetic effects on offspring educational outcomes

Nivard¹,

Belsky²,

Harden³

et al. 2022

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Third, we examined the influence of other family member's polygenic scores on child achievement, net of the child's own score. Recent findings of "genetic nurture" have documented relationships between nontransmitted parental alleles and child attainment and achievement (47)(48)(49). Given that mothers are typically more involved in childrearing than fathers--not infrequently to a substantial degree--the finding of some past research that maternal non-transmitted alleles matter more for attainments than paternal nontransmitted alleles would not be surprising (50).…”

Section: A) B)mentioning

confidence: 99%

Birth Order Differences in Education Originate in Post-Natal Environments

Isungset

Freese

Andreassen

et al. 2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Siblings share many environments and much of their genetics. Yet, siblings turn out different. Intelligence and education are influenced by birth order, where earlier-born outperform later-born. We investigate whether birth order differences in education are caused by genetic differences. Using data that spans two generations, combining registry, survey, and genotype information, this study is based on the Norwegian Mother, Father and Child Cohort Study (MoBa). We show that there are no genetic differences by birth order as captured by polygenic scores (PGSs) for educational attainment. Furthermore, we show that earlier-born have lower birth weight than later-born, indicating worse in utero environments. Educational outcomes are higher for earlier-born children when we control for PGSs and in utero variables. Finally, we consider environmental influences, such as maternal age, parental educational attainment, and sibling genetic nurture. We show that birth order differences are not genetic in origin, but their environmental cause remains elusive.

show abstract

A multi‐informant and multi‐polygenic approach to understanding predictors of peer victimisation in childhood and adolescence

et al. 2022

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Introduction: Peer victimisation is a prevalent occurrence in childhood and adolescence and can often have long-lasting consequences. Previous research using polygenic scores (PGSs) have revealed various genetic vulnerabilities as predictive of victimisation in childhood. However, findings were based on self-report and may therefore be influenced by varying self-perceptions. Previous investigations also focused on average victimisation across childhood, and thus do not capture variability in polygenic predictability over time. The present study, therefore, aimed to investigate associations between PGSs and victimisation using separate and combined reports from teachers and peers in childhood, as well as self-reports in later adolescence to explore trajectories of victimisation.Methods: Data were derived from the Quebec Newborn Twin Study. Participants were assessed for victimisation using self-reports from 7 to 17 years and using teacher ratings and peer nominations between 7 and 10 years (n = 536). Ten PGSs related to mental health, cognitive abilities and physical traits were examined as possible predictors of victimisation using linear regressions and growth curve models.Results: Findings revealed that PGSs associated with victimisation are consistent across informants, but to varying extent according to estimated effect sizes. Selfreported victimisation was predicted by PGSs related to mental health, while PGSs related to cognitive and physical traits had larger effect estimates when predicting teacher-and peer-reported victimisation. The PGS for educational attainment was consistently negatively associated with victimisation across informants, producing the largest effect estimates (β = −.104, 95% CI = −.169 to −.039) when predicting a multi-informant measure of victimisation. No PGS predicted changes in victimisation over time. Conclusion: While the PGS for educational attainment is a robust predictor of victimisation, many PGSs are differentially associated with victimisation depending on the informant. Such findings highlight the need to pay close attention to the This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

show abstract

Robust genetic nurture effects on education: A systematic review and meta-analysis based on 38,654 families across 8 cohorts

Cited by 71 publications

References 55 publications

Neither nature nor nurture: Using extended pedigree data to understand indirect genetic effects on offspring educational outcomes

Neither nature nor nurture: Using extended pedigree data to understand indirect genetic effects on offspring educational outcomes

Birth Order Differences in Education Originate in Post-Natal Environments

A multi‐informant and multi‐polygenic approach to understanding predictors of peer victimisation in childhood and adolescence

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About