The Intellectual Development of Yoruba Children

In reexamining Yoruba children from educated (ELITE) and traditional (OJE) families after five years, we find that those growing up in a privileged environment showed increasingly superior mental age scores. A partial replication of the original study from Yoruba children of 31/z to 7 years confirmed the original findings of highly significant age and background effects. Analysis of the nine age groups in the second stage also yielded a significant age and family background interaction. The predictive power of the 1968 scores, transformed as intelligence quotients, was examined in a regression analysis. An unexpected result was the failure of the 1968 scores for boys to predict performance in 1973. The regression coefficients for both ELITE and OJE girls were significantly greater than zero. Although these findings might suggest biological determinants, these are difficult to specify-as are any aspects of socialization which would be similar in both ELITE and OJE families but which would differentiate the treatment of boys and girls.