**update 08/03/12: see bottom of post.**
to find out whether or not there are regional differences in iq in spain, the reluctant apostate suggested looking at the pisa scores (which seem to be a good proxy for iq scores) from 2009 for spain, which are broken down regionally here. so i did.
they look like this:
Reading
Spain (Castile and Leon) 507
Spain (Catalonia) 499
Spain (Madrid) 499
Spain (Basque Country) 496
Spain (Navarre) 495
Spain (Aragon) 492
Spain (Asturias) 492
Spain (Cantabria) 488
Spain (La Rioja) 488
Spain (Murcia) 484
Spain (Galicia) 483
Spain (Balearic Islands) 461
Spain (Andalusia) 458
Spain (Canary Islands) 444
Spain (Ceuta and Melilla) 403
Mathematics
Spain (Castile and Leon) 514
Spain (Navarre) 511
Spain (Basque Country) 510
Spain (Aragon) 506
Spain (La Rioja) 504
Spain (Catalonia) 496
Spain (Madrid) 496
Spain (Cantabria) 495
Spain (Asturias) 494
Spain (Galicia) 489
Spain (Murcia) 478
Spain (Balearic Islands) 464
Spain (Andalusia) 462
Spain (Canary Islands) 435
Spain (Ceuta and Melilla) 417
Science
Spain (Castile and Leon) 516
Spain (La Rioja) 509
Spain (Navarre) 509
Spain (Madrid) 508
Spain (Galicia) 506
Spain (Aragon) 505
Spain (Asturias) 502
Spain (Cantabria) 500
Spain (Catalonia) 497
Spain (Basque Country) 495
Spain (Murcia) 484
Spain (Andalusia) 469
Spain (Balearic Islands) 461
Spain (Canary Islands) 452
Spain (Ceuta and Melilla) 416
as you can see, the further south — or offshore — you go in spain, the lower the pisa scores. here’s a map of the different regions in spain:
in fact, while the scores of most of the regions become gradually lower by a few points in each instance, the scores of the four lowest regions (andalusia, the balearic islands, the canary island, and ceuta & melilla [which are actually in morocco]) drop off dramatically by anywhere from 14 to 22 points compared to the next highest scoring region (e.g. in reading, the balearic islands score was 461, while the next highest was galicia at 483, a 22 point difference).
v. weiss suggests that a maths pisa score of 463 — the closest to the andalucia score of 462 — is the equivalent of an iq of 93, whereas a pisa score of 514 — the score of the highest scoring region, castile and leon — is the equivalent of an iq of 99.
if he’s correct, that would give the southernmost region of spain an iq like that of greece, while the average iq of people in one of the largest northern regions is more like that of poland or hungary.
so, maybe there is a north vs. south iq division in spain like the one found in italy (although the existence of that one has been disputed).
previously: españa al norte frente al sur
update: see also the reluctant apostate’s awesome maps of italy and spain’s pisa scores, which are awesome (the maps, that is, not necessarily the scores). (~_^)
update 08/03/12: frank is doubtful that there is a north-south divide in pisa scores in spain. the numbers say differently (latitudes grabbed from geohack):
(note: comments do not require and email.)
Can you get a similar measurement for southern vs northern Portugal?
@ihtg – oooo, i dunno! i’ll have to check. (^_^)
@IHTG
Nope, the countries that are subdivided are Belgium (Flemish>German>French), Finland (Finnish>Swedish), the UK (depends on test, but the Welsh are consistently the lowest scorers), Spain, and Italy.
On the topic of the last two, I have a post with maps showing the regional results in Italy and Spain. The gap between Castilla y León and Andalucía is not quite as great as the gap between Lombardy and Sicily, though it’s to that between Castilla y León to Las Islas Canarias. Ceuta and Melilla, being essentially Moroccan cities under Spanish control, come in with the lowest scores of them all.
I thought it was interesting that three of the autonomous communities in Spain were left out and it just so happens that they’re the three that are directly north of Andalucía and Murcia.
Another point of note was that Galicia did fairly poorly on the Reading section relative to the other two, and I wonder if that’s related to the fact that galego is essentially a dialect of Portugese.
Checking back, Galicia’s Mathematics score was only marginally better than it’s Reading score (its Science score is the one that stands out). For some historical reference on the languages of Iberia, here’s an animated Wikipedia map. I suspect that there’s a bit of a “shadow of Mozarabic” effect in Andalucía, as Andalusian Spanish is a bit different than standard castellano.
@r.a. – “I thought it was interesting that three of the autonomous communities in Spain were left out and it just so happens that they’re the three that are directly north of Andalucía and Murcia.”
well, that, maybe, explains the marked drop off in the scores. i was wondering what was up with that. i thought maybe the southerners were much dumber than the rest. maybe, tho, there really is a gradual reduction in scores from north to south, we just can’t see it since that handful of regions were left out.
I was thinking about the high performing regions. Lombardy is the home of Milan, which is a major international center for Italy and a center of research. I was trying to think whether there was anything similar that could be said of Castilla y León, which is the highest scoring in Spain. After all, the two biggest cities in Spain are Barcelona, in Cataluña and Madrid, which has its own autonomous community and neither of those two stand out particularly, while Castilla y León definitely does.
The only thing that came to mind was Salamanca, which is host to Spain’s oldest university.
I’d be surprised if there were not regional variation in Spain. I’d be surprised if there was not regional variation in every country. If somebody looks at the different regions of Germany, they will very likely see regional variations.
The regional variation in Spain does not follow a strict north-south alignment. Galicia, one of the lowest scoring regions, is at the same latitude as Castile, the highest scoring region.
@frank – “The regional variation in Spain does not follow a strict north-south alignment.”
nobody said there was a strict north-south alignment of pisa scores, but there is definitely a broad north-south divide in pisa scores in spain. (see the update in the post above.)
The difference in PISA scores match closely the differences in litteracy of the different Spanish regions in the 50s. Rather than to genetic reasons, you should look at the social and economic differences of the pupils homes.
@history teacher from spain – “The difference in PISA scores match closely the differences in litteracy of the different Spanish regions in the 50s. Rather than to genetic reasons, you should look at the social and economic differences of the pupils homes.”
the reverse is more likely: that southern spaniards have had lower literacy rates and poorer economic outcomes because they have a lower average iq/pisa scores compared to northern spain. that is most likely the flow of causation.
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