Selection and the Problem of Conformity

Abstract

An assumption widely held amongst teachers and psychologists, throughout the educational systems of all countries, is that their pupils are reasonably consistent. It is assumed that the boy who excels at the age of ten or eleven will still be doing well a decade later—that he will have gained outstanding ‘O’ Level and ‘A’ Level results, and perhaps a university scholarship too, and that he is destined to take a First Class degree. Everyone admits exceptions—the ‘late starters’, and the precocious children who begin brilliantly but fail to fulfil their early promise. What is not clear, however, is how numerous these exceptions may be. There is little evidence of a searching nature that bears on this point, and experts are still free to disagree. Some argue that the level of consistency in intellectual performance is high from one age level to another. Others counter—and for a variety of reasons —that such consistency in children is less real than apparent.