IQ Tests and the Social Construction of "Race"

From UBC Wiki

IQ Tests and the Social Construction of "Race"

Overview

IQ Tests is a method of evaluation that purports that one's level of intelligence can be quantifiably measured. IQ tests have been used in the field of education, social policy, immigration policies and even in reproductive health to segregate and control populations. Moreover, IQ tests have been given credibility in the assessment of "intelligence" and minority groups - that minorities, especially groups of African descent, are somehow intellectually inferior to white groups.

Historical Context

Test Origins

The test was created by Alfred Binet in 1903 and was initially created to develop a means to see which students would need extra or special attention in their studies. Binet first designed a test that measured the competency of the average child - the test was based upon the competency of an average 8-year-old child. For example, a 6 year-old child who passed all the tests and tasks that a 6 year-old would normally be able to pass, but nothing beyond, would have a mental age that matched exactly his chronological age of 6 years old.[1] He was designing a test for Parisian students and thus, would not be applicable for students in the countryside who do not have access to the same institutions as the city dwellers would have. [2]

Binet understood the limitations of his test and scale and noted that intelligence testing was "subject to variability and was not generalizable." [3]

In 1908, soon after the creation of the Binet test, H.H. Goddard, a key figure in the eugenics movement in the U.S., brought the test over to the U.S. from France in order to use it to bolster the idea of white superiority. [4] From Goddard, Lewis M. Terman took the test and created the Stanford-Binet test. Terman is considered the person who made "IQ" and "IQ tests" a "household word" [5]. He was devoted to implementing testing programs in U.S. schools, and believed that performance on these tests was "genetically determined" and that there were "inherited differences in intelligence between social classes and 'races'" in America. [6] Thus, a new objective for these tests was implemented in Terman's Stanford-Binet IQ test: to "[curtail] the reproduction of feeble-mindedness and in the elimination of an enormous amount of crime, pauperism, and industrial inefficiency." [7]

g

In the 19th Century, Francis Galton assessed "races" according to a concept he called "intelligence." This idea was picked up by Charles E. Spearman and called the variance between different mental capabilities as "general intelligence," or "g." [8] In his Hereditary Genius (1869), Galton argued that "eminence runs in families" [9] thus, he was trying to make the link between "intelligence" and genetics. The concept of 'g' is a contentious topic as there are debates as to how one can measure intelligence. A recurring criticism is that the concept of intelligence is different in different societies and therefore, variability exists. The same criteria that is used in North America cannot be used to measure 'g' in different societies.

In 1969, Arthur Jensen published an article in the Harvard Educational Review, stating that differences in IQ scores were due to genetic differences- and made the claim that the difference in average IQ between "Americans of European and African origins was probably partly genetic.[10] Arthur Jensen, a devotee of "g" and racialist, opined that "psychologists are incapable of reaching a consensus on the definition. It has proved to be a hopeless quest." [11] His regret over the inconsistency of the definition of 'g' (intelligence) reveals that "intelligence" is difficult to measure, and most of the time, when trying to measure "intelligence," researchers often do not know exactly what they are trying to measure. Despite the fact that "g" is a problematic concept, it has been "enshrined in a place of honour and made the focus of what could almost be called a cult." [12] Thus, proponents of "g" and IQ tests believe that performance on these tests depend on both learning and innate ability. In other words, they believe that genes and the level of one's intelligence are inextricably linked.

The Bell Curve

Published in 1994, Richard Hernstein, a Harvard psychologist, and Charles Murray, an economist, made two main arguments regarding intelligence and class in America. They purported that there are substantial individual and group differences in intelligence; and that these differences profoundly affect the social structure of modern society; and that they defy easy remediation. [13] They argue that at most, environmental influence over intelligence is 40% and the majority of differences in IQ can be determined by biology up to 80% [14] .

Criticisms of the IQ Test: Misuses and Abuses of IQ Tests

Contributions to the Social Construction of Race

Alfred Binet noted himself that one's learning and environment would have major consequences in terms of test outcome. They noted that: "a normal peasant in his milieu of the fields, would be at a disadvantage in the city...a multitude of circumstances which have to be taken into account to judge each particular case." [15] The history of IQ testing shows that tests were used to "advocate reactionary and often evil social policies." [16] Goddard used the tests to prove that "feeble-mindedness was hereditary." Thus, many critics have argued that these hereditarian beliefs which were bolstered by these "scientific" tests "had sinister and malign influence on public policy." [17] One of these critics' arguments sums up how IQ tests were used:

"The testing movement was clearly linked, in the United States, to the passage, beginning in 1907, of compulsory sterilization laws aimed at genetically inferior 'degenerates'...[And] the army IQ data figured prominently in the public and congressional debates over the Immigration Act of 1924. That overtly racist act established as a feature of American immigration policy a system of 'national origin quotas.' The purpose of the quotas was explicitly to debar, as much as possible, the genetically inferior peoples of Southern and Eastern Europe, while encouraging 'Nordic' immigration from Northern and Western Europe." [18]

Therefore, the common charge against IQ tests have been whether or not they can truly measure "intelligence" (a debatable concept) and that they have been used as tools to oppress the poor, disadvantaged, and to continue to socially construct "races". Not only contributing to the social construction of "race," but also the construction of which "race" is inferior or superior.

Immigration, Sterilization and IQ Tests

Legislation was passed in the US to control immigration and for sterilization. Galton coined the term 'eugenics' to refer to "the science of improving stock...which...takes cognizance of all influences that tend...to give the more suitable races or strains of blood a better chance of prevailing speedily over the less suitable than they otherwise would have had." [19] Galton devised means for advancing policies that would prevent the reproduction of the "undesirable." [20] Goddard administered Binet tests to newly arrived immigrants in New York and found that many had tested "feeble-minded" or below. [21]

An infamous case that demonstrates the nexus of immigration, sterilization and IQ tests is the Buck v. Bell case in 1927. In Buck v. Bell, The US Supreme Court ruled in 1927 that Carrie Buck, a patient at the Virginia Colony for Epileptics and Feebleminded, was raped and gave birth to a daughter. [22] Carrie Buck's mother was also an inmate of the colony. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes stated that she should be in fact be vaccinated: "Three generations of imbeciles are enough." [23]

Intelligence Testing and Education

Recent data and scholarship indicates that these types of assessments and placement procedures are tainted with racial, cultural, and linguistic biases. [24] These assessments are not "objective" or are they "culture fair." Henry and Tator note that in a study of 400 assessments, of students who were enrolled in ESL programs in a western Canadian city, the psychologists who administered the test lacked the "knowledge to assess the children's academic potential" and that the tests were culturally biased. [25]

Just as Binet noted, tests that are used as placement or performance assessments will "test" Eurocentric orientations and does not make note of the child's cultural backgrounds, linguistic skills in their own mother tongue and thus, their results will be significantly different from those of the children upon whom the test was normed. [26] An on-going issue is the streaming and placement of Black students into low-level academic programs, which place these students on a vocational track.

IQ tests used in the field of education should be revised. The liberal position on IQ tests would purport that rather than a single general intelligence, there are multiple mental abilities and it is not possible to give primacy to one ability only. The role of education, family background, socio-economic status, gender, access to health care, life chances etc., are all factors that can contribute to IQ test scores.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/binet.shtml
  2. ↑ http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/binet.shtml
  3. ↑ http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/binet.shtml
  4. ↑ http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/binet.shtml
  5. ↑ Brace, C. Loring, Race is a Four Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 217
  6. ↑ Brace, C. Loring, Race is a Four Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 218.
  7. ↑ http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/binet.shtml
  8. ↑ Brace, C. Loring, Race is a Four Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 205
  9. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 7,
  10. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 3.
  11. ↑ Brace, C. Loring, Race is a Four Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 205.
  12. ↑ Brace, C. Loring, Race is a Four Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 206.
  13. ↑ http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/bellcurve.shtml.
  14. ↑ Lemann, Nicholas. “The Bell Curve Flattened.” Slate Magazine. 18 Jan. 1997. Web. 6 Nov 2015.
  15. ↑ Brace, C. Loring, Race is a Four Letter Word: The Genesis of the Concept. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. p. 207.
  16. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 5.
  17. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 18 .
  18. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 19
  19. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 19
  20. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 19.
  21. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 23.
  22. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 20
  23. ↑ Mackintosh, N. J. IQ and Human Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press, 2011, p. 20
  24. ↑ Henry, F. and Tator, C. The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. Toronto: Thomson Nelson Ltd., 2003, p. 206
  25. ↑ Henry, F. and Tator, C. The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. Toronto: Thomson Nelson Ltd., 2003, p. 206
  26. ↑ Henry, F. and Tator, C. The Colour of Democracy: Racism in Canadian Society. Toronto: Thomson Nelson Ltd., 2003, p. 206.

.

.

Retrieved from "https://wiki.ubc.ca/index.php?title=IQ_Tests_and_the_Social_Construction_of_%22Race%22&oldid=382904"