Yes, the claim that Dunedin school assignment is quasi-random is a big one. At least in the USA, I know that one of the biggest appeals of sex-segregated private schools to parents is precisely the belief that it’ll reduce misbehavior...
I’m also very concerned to see that there was apparently an entire candidate-gene chapter (this was written in 2020, not 2010, right?). I hope this is some of the MAOA/B work which is real, as opposed to the 99% which is bogus; if not, I thought Belsky knew better.
I’m from Dunedin and went to highschool there (in the 2010s), so I guess I can speak to this a bit.
Co-ed schools were generally lower decile (=lower socio-economic backgrounds) than the single sex schools (here is data taken from wikipedia on this). The selection based on ‘ease of walking to school’ is still a (small) factor, but I expect this would have been a larger factor in the 70s when there was worse public transport. In some parts of NZ school zoning is a huge deal, with people buying houses specifically to get into a good zone (especially in Auckland) but this isn’t that much the case in Dunedin.
Based on (~2010s) stereotypes about the schools, rates of drug use seemed pretty similar between co-ed and all-boys schools, and less in all-girls. And rates of violence were higher in all-boys schools, and less in co-ed and all-girls. But this is just my impression, and likely decades too late.
It says “In New Zealand, the choice to attend a single-sex school is not a result of a family’s desire that their child attend a religious or military institution; choice is primarily determined by which school the pupil can most easily walk to.” Looks like about 20% of government-run secondary schools are currently single-sex; not sure what it was like in the 70s or so when this was done. But I could imagine that in cases where parents particularly want a particular school they still chose based on things like whether it was single-sex and not only on what was closest.
Yes, the book was published in 2020. The parts about genetics emphasize that at the time they did the research (significantly earlier), testing was a lot more labor-intensive and expensive which is why they used a method that nobody would use now. The authors’ paper about the MAOA stuff came out in 2002. But if the method is also now considered to be mostly bogus, I wonder if they couldn’t resist publishing research that they’d already done even if the method wasn’t considered good anymore.
“In New Zealand, the choice to attend a single-sex school is not a result of a family’s desire that their child attend a religious or military institution; choice is primarily determined by which school the pupil can most easily walk to.”
Or perhaps the parents’ choice of where to live is influenced by proximity to the schools they prefer. Certainly in the UK, proximity to good schools is a big influence on house prices.
“In New Zealand, the choice to attend a single-sex school is not a result of a family’s desire that their child attend a religious or military institution; choice is primarily determined by which school the pupil can most easily walk to.”
I mean, sure, it makes lots of sense that walking distance would be a core mediator, but what evidence do they have that walking distance is determined by chance, rather than being influenced by the family’s desired school or resources?
Yes, the claim that Dunedin school assignment is quasi-random is a big one. At least in the USA, I know that one of the biggest appeals of sex-segregated private schools to parents is precisely the belief that it’ll reduce misbehavior...
I’m also very concerned to see that there was apparently an entire candidate-gene chapter (this was written in 2020, not 2010, right?). I hope this is some of the MAOA/B work which is real, as opposed to the 99% which is bogus; if not, I thought Belsky knew better.
I’m from Dunedin and went to highschool there (in the 2010s), so I guess I can speak to this a bit.
Co-ed schools were generally lower decile (=lower socio-economic backgrounds) than the single sex schools (here is data taken from wikipedia on this). The selection based on ‘ease of walking to school’ is still a (small) factor, but I expect this would have been a larger factor in the 70s when there was worse public transport. In some parts of NZ school zoning is a huge deal, with people buying houses specifically to get into a good zone (especially in Auckland) but this isn’t that much the case in Dunedin.
Based on (~2010s) stereotypes about the schools, rates of drug use seemed pretty similar between co-ed and all-boys schools, and less in all-girls. And rates of violence were higher in all-boys schools, and less in co-ed and all-girls. But this is just my impression, and likely decades too late.
It says “In New Zealand, the choice to attend a single-sex school is not a result of a family’s desire that their child attend a religious or military institution; choice is primarily determined by which school the pupil can most easily walk to.” Looks like about 20% of government-run secondary schools are currently single-sex; not sure what it was like in the 70s or so when this was done. But I could imagine that in cases where parents particularly want a particular school they still chose based on things like whether it was single-sex and not only on what was closest.
Yes, the book was published in 2020. The parts about genetics emphasize that at the time they did the research (significantly earlier), testing was a lot more labor-intensive and expensive which is why they used a method that nobody would use now. The authors’ paper about the MAOA stuff came out in 2002. But if the method is also now considered to be mostly bogus, I wonder if they couldn’t resist publishing research that they’d already done even if the method wasn’t considered good anymore.
Or perhaps the parents’ choice of where to live is influenced by proximity to the schools they prefer. Certainly in the UK, proximity to good schools is a big influence on house prices.
I mean, sure, it makes lots of sense that walking distance would be a core mediator, but what evidence do they have that walking distance is determined by chance, rather than being influenced by the family’s desired school or resources?