Is Intelligence Smarter Than Someone Else?

Intelligence is the cognitive ability to think, deal and rationalize new information, but what exactly determines whether someone is smarter than someone else? Well, many factors contribute to intelligence, such as education and heredity, but a major contributor is also socioeconomic status. In the popular 1994 publication The Bell Curve, socioeconomic status has been proven to have an effect on intelligence on lower-class households in poverty with implications with poor nutrition and health, violence, domestic problems, abuse and lack of a stimulating learning environment (pg.100).

A proper nutritional diet during early childhood is essential for brain development. In 2016, over 43.1 million Americans reported to be living below the poverty

Poverty affects education by limiting the available resources like technology, supplies and support. Communities in low income areas often have shared a number of limited available computers to lend out to students and often, books are also shared to a certain number of students, which in return, some will learn more than others. Additionally, children in poverty have a higher rate of being absent in class due to family obligations, which disadvantages them from fully participating in class. Similarly, students in poverty are more likely to drop out than any other

Evidence for programs such as Head Start have shown remarkably great success in improvement in social skills and health, at a lesser chance of staying back in school, and a higher probability of graduating high school and later enrolling in college, in addition; lower rates of drug use and delinquency (Love, Chazan- Cohen, & Raikes, 2007; Zigler & Styfco, 2004). In the beginning of fall, students often perform around 1 month behind compared to the spring semester, this is likely due to the lack of reading and vocabulary tasks (McCombs et al. 2012). In order to combat the summer reading gap, the city of Edinburg must have an effective summer program for all lower-income students, regardless if they are residents or not, because often at times, migrant students travel to different places with their family for work, while many districts have certain policies regarding accepting them, Edinburg should provide the help they need. Not only will a summer program help with education, but food and supplemental supplies will also be given to students, ensuring no student will have nothing to worry about in class, preventing distraction and promoting