Reserves of ability in Australian male youth : an exploratory study

Abstract

This thesis is centred on an empirical study of reserves of ability among Australian male youth , using a technique adapted from the European research of Wolff and Harnqvist . The study is pitched at the level of the senior years of secondary schooling . A cross- sectional vi design is involved , the data being based on a sample of National Servicemen enlisted in the calendar year 1971 . The study is conceptualised within the issue of equality of educational opportunity . The main empirical focus is on the relationship between measures of social class , intellectual ability and educational attainment . The principal point of departure in the method of estimating reserves of ability is the use of the benchmark assumption that children of the higher social classes receive all the education that their abilities , interests and temperaments allow . This assumption has the effect of confining the discovery of reserves to the ranks of the lower social classes . The study investigates the extent of matriculation reserves among lower social class members of the sample . Estimates of reserves in the entire twenty- year- old male age group are then projected . Using the ratio of male to female senior secondary school enrolments , estimates are also made of the number of reserves in the corresponding female age group , and in the population age group as a whole . These generalisations are subject to limitations arising from problems of sampling and measurement and the study is regared as being essentially an exploratory one . Some implications of the approach used in the study for the mobilisation of reserves are discussed .