Education is not about SES
Education is not about SES

Summary/Abstract: A strong focus of Jaap Dronkers research work was on socioeconomic inequalities in education. One of his major contributions was to include cognitive ability in the analyses of educational inequalities, most commonly in the analysis of school tracking. This paper follows in this tradition by presenting evidence that the emphasis by both researchers and policymakers on students’ socioeconomic status (SES) is very much misplaced. It questions the validity of the concept SES, its measurement and the ability of theory to explain the relationships between SES and educational outcomes. It presents evidence showing that cognitive ability is a far more powerful influence on educational outcomes than SES and much of the variation in cognitive ability, student achievement and educational attainment is genetic. This evidence has important implications for both researchers in education and policymakers in educational bureaucracies.

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