Shanahan and colleagues (2008) examined whether the DRD2 Taq1A single nucleotide polymorphism is related to school continuation and whether social relationships compensate the DRD2 genetic risk. How much parents and their children talk about school projects, related issues, and grades captured the student-parent relationship and parental involvement in their school at Wave I (1995). School attainment was measured at Wave III (2001-02) when Add Health participants in the sibling pairs sample were between the ages of 18 and 24 among Black and White males and females. Tests of the gene-environment interplay in this study revealed that two measures of parental involvement and the quality of school mitigated the risk of not continuing their schooling among carriers of the DRD2 Taq1A allele. These factors included a high parental socioeconomic status, high parental involvement in school, and having attended a school where a large number of students go on to attend college. These findings underscore the salience of the student-parent relationship in enhancing the likelihood of continuing education beyond high school.
