• Education home
• About the Department
• Undergraduate study
• Postgraduate study
• Teacher training/PGCE
• Research
• Equality and Diversity
• Our staff
• Meet our students
• International students
• Student wellbeing
• For alumni
• News and events
• Intranet
• Contact us

Genes and family are biggest predictor of academic success

Posted on 23 December 2019

Professor Sophie von Stumm's study finds that parents' socioeconomic status and children's inherited DNA differences are powerful predictors of educational achievement.

Her study stuggests whether children will enjoy academic success can be now predicted at birth.

However, the research suggests that having the genes for school success is not as beneficial as having parents who are highly educated and wealthy. Only 47% of children in the study sample with a high genetic propensity for education but a poorer background made it to university, compared with 62% with a low genetic propensity but parents that are more affluent.

Read the full story titled 'Genes and family are biggest predictor of academic success, study suggests'.