Do Children's Genes Evoke Educational Expectations? Direct Genetic Effects on Parents' and Teachers' College Encouragement
中文摘要
父母和教师的期望与抱负是教育结果的关键驱动因素，但究竟是什么因果性地塑造了这些期望仍不清楚。在本研究中，我们通过运用减数分裂的随机实验来回答这一问题：即在给定父母基因型的条件下，子代基因型是随机的，从而能够将子女的独特特征与更一般的家庭和住户环境去混淆。利用威斯康星纵向研究，我们采用孟德尔插补法，在控制父母遗传背景的条件下，估计 18 个多基因指数对大学鼓励的直接遗传效应。教育获得和数学能力的遗传倾向预测更强的大学入学期望，而吸烟行为预测更弱的期望。精神类特质在多重检验校正后未显示效应，表明反应集中于认知和行为特质。中介分析发现，前瞻性测量的教师鼓励约占认知特质对教育获得遗传效应的四分之一，但对精神类特质则不然。在高社会经济地位父母和头胎子女中，遗传对期望的效应被放大。因此，遗传对教育期望的影响在特质范围上是狭窄的，在家庭之间是不均衡的，而鼓励则是将遗传差异与教育不平等联系起来的一条渠道。
Abstract
Parents’ and teachers’ expectations and aspirations are critical drivers of educational outcomes, yet what causally shapes these expectations remains unclear. In the present study, we address this question by deploying the random experiment of meiosis: namely, conditional on parental genotype, offspring genotype is random, allowing for the unconfounding of unique child characteristics from the more general family and household environment. Using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, we employ Mendelian imputation to estimate the direct genetic effects of 18 polygenic indices on college encouragement, net of parental genetic background. The genetic propensity for educational attainment and mathematical ability predict stronger expectations of college attendance, while smoking behavior predicts weaker expectations. Psychiatric traits show no effects after multiple-testing correction, indicating that responses are concentrated on cognitive and behavioral traits. Mediation analysis finds that prospectively measured teachers’ encouragement accounts for roughly a quarter of the genetic effects on educational attainment for cognitive traits, but not for psychiatric traits. Genetic effects on expectations are amplified among high-SES parents and first-born children. Thus, genetic influences on educational expectations are narrow in trait scope and uneven across families, with encouragement serving as one channel linking genetic differences to educational inequality.