The mean Southern Italian children is not particularly low: A reply to Lynn (2010)

Working with data from the PISA study (OECD, 2007), Lynn (2010) has argued that individuals 17 from South Italy average an IQ approximately 10 points lower than individuals from North 18 Italy, and has gone on to put forward a series of conclusions on the relationship between 19 average IQ, latitude, average stature, income, etc. The present paper criticizes these conclusions 20 and the robustness of the data from which Lynn (2010) derived the IQ scores. In particular, on 21 the basis of recent Italian studies and our databank, we observe that : 1) school measures 22 should be used for deriving IQ indices only in cases where contextual variables are not crucial: 23 there is evidence that partialling out the role of contextual variables may lead to reduction or 24 even elimination of PISA differences; in particular, schooling effects are shown through 25 different sets of data obtained for younger grades; 2) in the case of South Italy, the PISA data 26 may have exaggerated the differences, since data obtained with tasks similar to the PISA tasks 27 (MT-advanced) show smaller differences; 3) national official data, obtained by INVALSI 28 (2009a) on large numbers of primary school children, support these conclusions, suggesting 29 that schooling may have a critical role; 4) purer measures of IQ obtained during the 30 standardisation of Raven's Progressive Coloured Matrices also show no significant differences 31 in IQ between children from South and North Italy.