The objective of this study was to determine factors that can predict the intellectual performance and educational attainment of adolescents living in poverty. Data of Mexican adolescents from rural and urban areas (
Educational attainment has been proposed as the most important mechanism to promote social mobility (
Intelligence has been defined as several interrelated intellectual abilities, organized as independent systems consisting of general abilities (
Both the general and specific intellectual abilities determine the global intellectual achievement; however, the general intellectual abilities derive from genetic and environmental factors, whereas the specific abilities are consciously acquired (
The cognitive abilities underlying the intellectual functions develop with age until they reach the complexity that characterizes adult intelligence (
It is possible to determine individual differences in intellectual abilities operationalized as intelligence quotient (IQ). These measures are relatively stable in time, and although intelligence scores may vary during life, they remain strongly correlated (
Individual differences in intellectual performance, measured as IQ scores predict most of the children´s future achievement, for example, their future success in life when they reach adulthood. It has been found that children and youth with higher IQ scores attain higher levels of education and better jobs, and achieve better economic situation as adults (
In sum, even though the origin of individual differences in intelligence or the causal relation between initial individual differences in intelligence and future achievement are still controversial issues, individual differences in IQ scores can validly predict several concurrent academic achievement issues (
Beside genetic factors, some environmental aspects (e.g., nutritional, familial, socioeconomic, cultural, and educational) play an important role in the determination of children´s intellectual performance (
Family SES may also affect children´s cognitive abilities through nutritional factors, since children from underpriveleged families are exposed to higher risk of malnutrition because of their household precariousness. Adequate nutrition during early childhood is particularly critical to promote healthy brain development, and the required competencies to initiate their school education (
The effect of the family SES on children’s intellectual performance may be affected by their parent´s intellectual performance, since the positive effect of a better family SES on children´s abilities decreases as maternal intellectual performance increases (
Besides the effect of the household precariousness, children are also exposed to the effect of parental educational attainment, which is usualy low in households with a low SES. Maternal educational attainment is possitively related to their children´s healthier development and better learning environment, with more intellectual stimulation and better academic guidance; all of wich affect the offspring´s cognitive development and their educational attainment (
Some plausible mechanisms of the relationship between household SES and children´s intellectual performance are the insufficient cognitive stimulation the children receive, due to the scarcity of economic resources; as well as the strong association between low parental educational attainment and crystallized inteligence measurements, like verbal IQ (
Additionally, the familial environment in which children grow up also affects their intellectual performance. It has been found that non-authoritarian parenting practices promote the offspring´s intellectual performance (
Poverty is associated with negative outcomes on children´s cognitive development and educational achievement (
The present study proposes the identification of social and psychological predictors of intellectual performance and educational attainment in a sample of adolescents living in poverty. Age, number of siblings, neighborhood insecurity, and adversity (e.g., unemployment of a family member, conflict between the parents, illness of a family member) were included as social variables, while individual and familial characteristics (e.g., resilience, intern locus of control, parenting practices, and peer relationships) were included as psychological variables. Intellectual performance and educational attainment are the outcomes of interest. The present study hypotheses are: 1) Higher intellectual performance is predicted by better social environment (fewer siblings, less neighborhood insecurity, and less adversity); and by 2) better familial environment (higher maternal intellectual performance and educational attainment, and more adequate parenting practices). Additionally, it was hypothesized that: 3) Higher educational attainment is predicted by higher intellectual performance; and that 4) psychological resources (resilience, intern locus of control, direct coping style, peer relationships, and social support) moderate the relation between adversity (life events) and intellectual performance.
Data from 1,093 adolescents were analyzed, 61% of them living in urban localities, 55.8% were of male gender, with average age 14.92 (
Participants were the main beneficiaries of the governmental program against poverty called
Access to the national registry of beneficiary households of
Validation data on Mexican adolescents of the measures reported by offspring are described more extensively in
Adolescent intellectual performance was measured with verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests. The Barranquilla Rapid Survey Intelligence Test BARSIT (
It refers to the capacity to face and overcome adverse conditions, measured by the factorial scale Resilience (
It refers to the tendency to attribute events to one´s behavior, measured with the factorial scale Locus of Control (
Items come from the revised Ways of Coping scale (
The occurrence of adversity was measured through a factorial scale derived from items appropriate to adolescents from the Social Readjustment Rating Scale (
This was measured with items from another instrument (
The tendency to apply parenting practices was assessed with several subscales from the Parenting Practices scales (
This factorial scale was derived from other instruments (
This factorial scale (
This factorial scale (
The validation data in Mexican adults of the measurements assessed in the mothers of the adolescents are described in
The same verbal and nonverbal intelligence tests applied to adolescents were used to assess mother´s intellectual performance: the Barrranquilla Rapid Survey Intelligence Test BARSIT (
Beneficiary mothers and their adolescent offspring were assessed separately using two different surveys. Mothers were assessed in the first survey and their offspring in the second one. In both surveys participants were interviewed face to face individually at their homes by professional interviewers using questionnaires. Interviews lasted approximately an hour. Informed consent was obtained from mothers and informed consent and permission was obtained from adolescent´s mothers to authorize their adolescent offspring´s participation. Participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and independent from their program involvement and were assured of their data confidentiality.
Covariance analysis of the dependent variables of interest (intellectual performance and educational attainment) by gender and type of locality, while controlling for age, indicated that there were no significant differences in verbal and nonverbal intelligence scores by gender, nor were there significant differences in nonverbal intelligence scores or educational attainment by type of locality (
The data reported by the adolescents and their mothers were analyzed with structural equations modeling (SEM) using the maximum likelihood method. SEM is a multivariate statistical analysis technique that can combine factor analysis and path analysis to define latent variables using observed variables, and to test structural models that impute relationships between latent variables.
One model was fitted to the entire sample, since the aforementioned covariance analyses did not show generalized group differences. The tested model consisted of latent variables like
The tested model showed that higher offspring intellectual performance was predicted by older age, higher maternal intellectual performance and education, more adversity, fewer siblings, lower levels of inadequate parenting, and lower levels of neighborhood insecurity. Further, higher offspring educational attainment was predicted by older age, higher intellectual performance, higher levels of psychological resources and lower levels of inadequate parenting. Additionally, higher levels of psychological resources were predicted by higher intellectual performance. Finally, lower levels of maternal intellectual performance and education covaried with higher levels of inadequate parenting, and older age and higher neighborhood insecurity covaried with more adversity. No significant covariance was found between adversity and psychological resources (
The model attained an acceptable fit (
The objective of the present analysis was to identify predictors of the intellectual performance and educational attainment of youth living in poverty. To this effect, data from adolescents and their mothers, beneficiaries of a governmental program against poverty, were analyzed. Early analyses showed few differences by gender and type of locality controlling by age in favor of women´s educational attainment, and of urban adolescents´ verbal intelligence scores. Additionally, the SEM analysis indicated that the proposed model predicted both the adolescent´s intellectual performance and educational attainment.
The gender difference in educational attainment is consistent with previous results indicating positive effects of the
Regarding the proposed hypotheses, results partially supported the first hypothesis, since fewer siblings and less neighborhood insecurity, but not less adversity (e.g., better social environment), predicted higher intellectual performance. Contrary to what was expected, more adversity (life events) predicted higher intellectual performance. Data supported the second hypothesis, since higher maternal intellectual performance and education and a lower level of inadequate parenting practices (e.g., better familial environment) predicted higher offspring intellectual performance. Also the third hypothesis received empirical support, since higher intellectual performance predicted higher educational attainment by the adolescents. However, the fourth hypothesis was not supported by the data, since psychological resources do not moderate the effect of adversity on intellectual performance. On the contrary, there was no relation between psychological resources and adversity, while adversity positively predicted intellectual performance, and intellectual performance positively predicted psychological resources. A possible explanation could be that adolescents with higher intellectual performance are more aware of stressful events and have more psychological resources to counteract the negative impact of adversity.
One of the stronger predictors of adolescent´s intellectual performance and educational attainment was their age. This relation is not surprising because the present sample comprises young people in academic formation, who have not yet reached their full intelligence potential nor have they completed their educational instruction. As has been previously found, an additional year of age is associated with increases in youths’ intellectual performance and educational attainment (
Present results are congruent with others that signal the close and positive relationship between intellectual performance and various aspects of academic achievement and educational achievement (
Inadequate parenting practices like coercion, imposition, permissiveness and inconsistent disciplinary practices, showed an inverse relationship with offspring´s intellectual performance. This underlines the importance of the familial evironment in which the adolescents are growing up, and concours with other results documenting the adverse effect of coercive practices on the cognitive development of children (
Two social variables, number of siblings at home and neighborhood security, were directly related to offspring intellectual performance. A greater number of siblings predicted lower intellectual performance, a result that may be associated with the availability of parental economic, cultural, and time resources which decrease, as the number of children among whom parents must divide household resources increasses. Furthermore, a social stressor like neighborhood insecurity negatively predicted adolescent´s intellectual performance, consistent with other results documenting the negative effect of insecurity on youth´s cognitive and academic development (
Life events were included in the model as an adversity measure with the purpose of taking into account the possibility of adversity affecting intellectual performance (
Similarly, psychological resources were proposed as moderators of the possible negative effects of adversity on intellectual performance. Results indicated that higher intellectual performance predicted higher levels of psychological resources, consistent with other results previously pointing to this positive relation (
It has been previously found that intellectual performance may moderate the negative impact of adversity (
In sum, results are congruent with the proposition that the intellectual performance of adolescents living in poverty is positively predicted by familial environments with a richer parental knowledge base, less coercive parenting, and fewer siblings, and by less insecure neighborhoods. Adolescents’ educational attainment was positively predicted by higher intellectual performance, greater psychological resources, and less coercive parenting. Additionally, the adolescents´ age had an important role in the predictition of their intellectual performance and educational attainment.
The present study provides information about a less studied population sector based on data from a national probabilistic sample of households beneficiaries of a government program against poverty. However, some weaknesses of the study, like the crosssectional design of the study and the use of self-reports as measurements of some variables, should also be mentioned.
Our data on a national sample of households enable the present results to be extended to other benefiaries of the program nationwide, and to design strategies tailored to this population sector, with the purpose of preventing the transgenerational transmission of poverty. Present results allow the suggestion of possible intervention strategies aimed at enhancing the intellectual performance of adolescents living in poverty and supporting their educational attainment.
Some of these possibilities encompass the implementation of informative actions directed to parents about the deleterious effects of inadequate parenting practices and how to avoid them, as well as government actions to reinforce public security. An additional strategy is to promote parental educational attainment. There is already a government institution dedicated to adult education, so that the promotion of educational attainment of mothers beneficiaries of the
This work was supported by the Instituto de Investigación sobre Desarrollo Sustentable y Equidad Social at the Universidad Iberoamericana, Mexico City; and the Fondo Mixto Conacyt-Sedesol [Grant No. 91388].
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Wayne J. Robins is gratefully thanked for his valuable comments.