Schooling in adolescence raises IQ scores
Open accessAbstract
Although some scholars maintain that education has little effect on intelligence quotient (IQ) scores, others claim that IQ scores are indeed malleable, primarily through intervention in early childhood. The causal effect of education on IQ at later ages is often difficult to uncover because analyses based on observational data are plagued by problems of reverse causation and self-selection into further education. We exploit a reform that increased compulsory schooling from 7 to 9 y in Norway in the 1960s to estimate the effect of education on IQ. We find that this schooling reform, which primarily affected education in the middle teenage years, had a substantial effect on IQ scores measured at the age of 19 y.
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Greater exposure to formal education is associated with higher scores on cognitive tests.
“for example, greater exposure to formal education is associated with higher scores (Brinch & Galloway, 2012;Matarazzo & Herman, 1984).”
From ‘National IQ’ datasets do not provide accurate, unbiased or comparable measures of cognitive ability worldwide (2022) · cites this paper as Brinch & Galloway, 2012
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- Authors
- Brinch, C. N., & Galloway, T. A.
- Affiliations
- Statistics Norway (NO)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2011-12-27
- Volume
- 109
- Issue
- 2
- Pages
- 425-430
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC3258640
- OpenAlex
- W2004585096
- Cited by
- 231
- References
- 3
- Citations by year
- 2026: 12 · 2025: 8 · 2024: 15 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 9 · 2021: 12 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 20 · 2017: 26 · 2016: 17 · 2015: 21 · 2014: 13 · 2013: 14 · 2012: 10
- FWCI
- 16.08
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- Universitetet i Oslo
- Norges Forskningsråd
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Cognitive Abilities and Testing
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies
- Social Sciences › Education › School Choice and Performance
- Keywords
- IQ scores, compulsory education reform, teenage years, reverse causality, self-selection, educational attainment
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Education, Humans, Intelligence Tests, Norway, Least-Squares Analysis, Models, Econometric, Adolescent Development
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