Did you know that self-esteem theory has now been proven ineffective, and so have tolerance and diversity emphases? "What!?" you say. "I thought all that was established orthodoxy amongst social scientists." No longer. In a recent Wall Street Journal article, Kay Hyowitz published an eye-opening review of Nurture Shock by Po Bronson and Ashley Merryman. Concerning the the latest research on self-esteem, Hymowitz writes:
And what do they show? That high self-esteem doesn't improve grades, reduce anti-social behavior, deter alcohol drinking or do much of anything good for kids. In fact, telling kids how smart they are can be counterproductive. Many children who are convinced that they are little geniuses tend not to put much effort into their work. Others are troubled by the latent anxiety of adults who feel it necessary to praise them constantly.
Education policy makers will find more cause for embarrassment in "NurtureShock." Drop-out programs don't work. Neither do anti-drug programs. The most popular of them, D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education), developed in 1983 by the Los Angeles Police Department, has become a more familiar sight in American schools than algebra class. By 2000, 80% of American school districts were using D.A.R.E. materials in some form. Now, after extensive study, comes the news: The program has no long-term, and only mild short-term, effects. Oh, and those tests that school districts use to determine giftedness in young children? They're just about useless. According to Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman, early IQ tests predict later achievement less than half the time. Between ages 3 and 10, about two-thirds of children will experience a rise or drop of 15 points or more.
You might assume from these examples that the authors want to make a point about our national gullibility in the face of faddish science. Unfortunately, they deconstruct yesterday's wisdom at the same time that they embrace today's—even when research is on the order of "do-we-really-need-a-$50,000-study-to-tell-us-this?" or of dubious practical value. Kids lie, they inform us. In fact, 4-year-olds lie once every hour. Still, Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman are impressed by research showing that "lying is an advanced skill," supposedly demonstrating both social and cognitive sophistication.
As for teenagers, well, they lie too. Parents shouldn't worry about them, though; they fib not because they want to get away with stuff they shouldn't be doing but because they don't want to upset mom and dad. Depending on your point of view, you might not be surprised to learn that permissive parents don't get more truth-telling from their teens than stricter parents. In any event, teens like conflict because, it is now claimed, they see it as enhancing their relationships with their parents.
Given how often last year's science has become today's boondoggle, Mr. Bronson and Ms. Merryman's analysis would have benefited from a dose of skepticism. Yes, social science has become more rigorously empirical in recent decades. A lot of the findings described in "NurtureShock" might even be true. But that doesn't mean that we have the remotest idea how to translate such findings into constructive parental behavior or effective public programs.
In a famous 1994 study described by the authors, researchers discovered that babies of professional parents were exposed to almost three times the number of words as the babies of welfare parents. Parents took to buying $699 "verbal pedometers," a gadget that counts the number of words their baby is hearing per hour. Now experts are modifying the earlier findings. Turns out that it's not so much the number of words kids hear that matters but the responsiveness of adults to a child's words and explorations. Shocked? I doubt it.