Parents’ and teachers’ expectations and aspirations are critical drivers of educational outcomes, yet what causally shapes these expectations remains unclear.
Using the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study, this study estimates the direct genetic effects of 18 polygenic indices on college encouragement, net of parental genetic background.
The genetic propensity for educational attainment and mathematical ability predict stronger expectations of college attendance, while smoking behavior predicts weaker expectations.
Teachers’ encouragement accounts for roughly a quarter of the genetic effects on educational attainment for cognitive traits, but not for psychiatric traits.
Genetic effects on expectations are amplified among high-SES parents and first-born children. Thus, genetic influences on educational expectations are narrow in trait scope and uneven across families, with encouragement serving as one channel linking genetic differences to educational inequality.
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