A Flynn Effect in Kuwait, 1985–1998

An analysis of Kuwaiti children's IQs, published by the Kuwaiti Ministry of Education, is translated, corrected, and presented in English for the first time. It is shown that among large representative samples of Kuwaiti children aged between 6 and 14, there was a Flynn Effect on a similarities-type test between 1985 and 1998 of 5.3 points per decade. It is argued that as this occurred in a context of increasingly conservative Islamic influence over the Kuwaiti education system, it is likely explicable in the same way that Western Flynn Effects are. The remarkably small Flynn Effect among the cohort aged 7 is cautiously explained in terms of the effect of the First Gulf War.