title: Mental ability, schooling, and early career achievement of low-IQ and average-IQ young men.
abstract: Status-attainment theory and methodology and data from the 1966 and 1971 National Longitudinal Surveys were used to construct and estimate a 13-variable, seven-stage causal model of the career-attainment process of low-IQ and average-IQ young men. Model variables included six personal-social inputs, three educationally related intervening variables, and four occupationally related outcomes. Multiple-regression analysis was used to estimate the model on the low-IQ and average-IQ groups, within white and black racial categories separately. Results showed gross differences to exist between low-IQ and average-IQ subjects on a number of variables. The regression results, however, indicated that the determinants of career attainment had similar effects among low-IQ and average-IQ subjects and that status-attainment theory applied equally well to the two IQ groups. Policy implications of the findings were discussed.
mesh_terms: D000124:Achievement; D000328:Adult; D002321:Career Choice; D002322:Career Mobility; D004522:Educational Status; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D008607:Intellectual Disability / Q000523:psychology*; D007360:Intelligence; D008137:Longitudinal Studies; D008297:Male; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D014481:United States