23.12 How far do rich parents take us? How much education children get is strongly associated with the wealth and social status of their parents. In social science jargon, this is “socioeconomic status,’’ or SES. But the SES of parents has little influence on whether children who have graduated from college go on to yet more education. One study looked at whether college graduates took the graduate admissions tests for business, law, and other graduate programs. The effects of the parents’ SES on taking the LSAT test for law school were “both statistically insignificant and small.’’
(a) What does “statistically insignificant’’ mean?
(b) Why is it important that the effects were small in size as well as insignificant?