On 27 Aug 2003, Allen Esterson wrote: > > It was not the correspondent�s opinion I was concerned about, rather I > was hoping for comments on Steven Rose�s assertion that IQ tests > �serve the ideological commitment of testers�. Or, to put it in less > ideological terms than Rose�s, that such tests are flawed by class, > race, and gender biases, by being culture-bound, or [as another Times > correspondent, cited below, claims] by the conflation of �learned > knowledge� with intelligence.
Now that Allen has clarified his interest, let me have a crack at answering it. I would say that the claim that conventional IQ tests are biased by being culture-bound is essentially correct. But that doesn't necessarily make them invalid. IQ tests were developed for a specific purpose: to predict specific kinds of performance in a particular kind of environment, notably school achievement and, perhaps, later success in life as measured by socio-economic status, occupation, and other such indicators, in an urban, industrialized, Western and even white society. For a relatively brief test administered at an early age, it does remarkably well at such predictions. But it doesn't claim to predict other kinds of performance in other kinds of environment. It may be unfair to a kid from the ghetto compared with a middle-class one to ask whether he knows what a "sonata" is or to explain why cheques must be signed. But it turns out that for functioning successfully in an urban, industrialized, Western society, kids who know such stuff do better than those who don't. Make the test culture-fair and it loses its predictive power. So IQ tests are undoubtedly biased but are still valuable for their narrowly-defined purpose. But use them to predict something else-- say, survival in the high arctic or on the streets of inner-city Detroit-- and knowing about sonatas and cheques is unlikely to have much predictive power. Stephen ______________________________________________________________ Stephen L. Black, Ph.D. tel: (819) 822-9600 ext 2470 Department of Psychology fax: (819) 822-9661 Bishop's University e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Lennoxville, QC J1M 1Z7 Canada Dept web page at http://www.ubishops.ca/ccc/div/soc/psy TIPS discussion list for psychology teachers at http://www.frostburg.edu/dept/psyc/southerly/tips _________________________________________________________ --- You are currently subscribed to tips as: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
