Some Relationships between Intelligence and Geographical Mobility

O NE of the most controversial and persistent problems in the field of sociology is that of rural-urban differences in intelligence and the effect of migration on such differences.' It is widely believed that important differences in mental ability and learning ability exist between urban and rural populations and that migrants from rural areas tend to be more intelligent than those who do not migrate, while migrants from cities to rural areas are less intelligent than those who remain. Large bodies of evidence tend to support such conclusions, but complete demonstrations of inequality of original nature and learning ability of rural and urban people and of the selective character of migrations between urban and rural areas offer so many difficulties that early dogmatic answers seem to have been premature.2 So many changes take place in the original nature of people who are the subjects of investigation that the underlying

Economic geography · Geography · Regional science · Sociology · Intergenerational and Educational Inequality Studies · Migration and Labor Dynamics · Urban, Neighborhood, and Segregation Studies

• Selective Migration from Small Towns

  W Parker Mauldin•American Sociological Review•1940

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