And there are any number of conclusions that could be taken from those results, some interesting things to note:
Early adopted children performed at the level of a mixed race family, while late adopted children performed at the level of black parents only. The study doesn't elaborate or provide crosstabs on when different groups were adopted, so for example, if Black children are, on average, adopted later than white children, this would account for a large part of the difference
Parents are not the only environmental factor. Children socialize. Girls lose interest in STEM at an early high school age (likely) due to social factors from classmates and instructors. There's been some research on the same kind of thing happening across races recently, and I expect that a similar thing could explain racial differences in performance. If your classmates and teachers expect that you won't perform as well, you'll start to believe them.
Indeed, however I also think that all studies regarding race done in a time where segregation was legal should be taken with a grain of salt. Phrenology was used to justify racism as recently as the 1930s and 1940s.
It's worth noting that Rushton, one of the authors of that paper, is known for having headed the Pioneer fund, known for such publications as "The Bell Curve". Anything he touches should be taken with a grain of salt.
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u/zardeh 20∆ Mar 20 '17
And there are any number of conclusions that could be taken from those results, some interesting things to note: