This book focuses on topics germane to cognitive abilities viewed from a "minority psychology" perspective. The most contentious chapters concern test bias and heredity, with culture, socioeconomic status, and case viewed as the chief explanations for test score differences between social classes and racial and ethnic groups. The reviewer…

Questionnaires concerning opinions regarding racial integration, busing, and ability grouping were solicited in Spring, 1968, just prior to total desegregation of the Berkeley schools, from 337 Berkeley, California elementary school teachers and from the parents of over 8,000 elementary school pupils. Analyses of the results indicated that: (1)…

This book is organized in nine parts, as follows. Part I, "Preface," includes an account of how the author went from the rather esoteric research on theoretical problems in serial rote learning to research on the inheritance of mental abilities and its implications for education. Part II, "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?," is…

Two studies with 658 white and 353 African-American elementary school children performing reaction time tasks are offered in support of Spearman's hypothesis about the relative size of the mean African-American-white differences on mental tests as a function of the tests' loadings on psychometric "g." (SLD)

In a study of the relationship between speed of information processing and general intelligence, vocational college students (50 black males and 56 white males) took eight different reaction time tests measuring the speed with which individuals perform various elementary cognitive processes, and a group test of scholastic aptitude (the Armed…

Longitudinal data on the auditory forward and backward digit span (FDS and BDS) subtests of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) were obtained at five age levels (between 6 and 13), in samples of white and black children. Factor analysis and analysis of variance of the data were conducted to test 5 hypotheses, related to Jensen's…

This paper, focusing on differences between Caucasians and Negroes in the United States, summarizes from a "scientific standpoint" the main facts and theoretical issues involved in the study of human racial differences and behaviors. Three principles are considered to govern the orientation of this document: (1) objective research and…

The study sought to use Jensen's two-level theory of mental abilities to predict some hitherto unknown or unnoticed phenomena--facts about which the theory should yield clear-cut predictions and which are not as clearly predictable from other theories, though they may receive ad hoc explanations after the fact. From the two-level theory of mental…

We need to find out the extent to which individual differences, social class differences and race differences in rates of cognitive development, and differential patterns of relative strength and weakness are attributable to genetically conditioned biological growth factors. The answers to this question might imply differences in our approach to…

It has been said that the heritability of learning ability or of intelligence is irrelevant to teachability. In support of this statement we see it pointed out that a child or a group of children show some response to training, and this is held up as evidence against the heritability of intelligence or learning ability. Most estimates of the…

The author refutes Humphrey's test of the Spearman hypothesis. A fair test requires that Black and White samples not be selected on any g-correlated variable, including socioeconomic status. Humphrey's factor analysis on test-score means of demographic groups, rather than on individuals, inflates g loadings and biases results. (LMO)

Contrary to popular opinion, it is very difficult to find any objective evidence of culture bias that could account for social class and racial differences in performance on current standard tests of intelligence, even those like the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT), which give the appearance of being highly culture-loaded. They may be…

The several statistical methods described for detecting test bias in terms of various internal features of a person's test performances and the test's construct validity can be applied to any groups in the population. But the evidence regarding groups other than U.S. blacks and whites is either lacking or is still too sketchy to permit any strong…

Criticizes approach to equal education that seeks equality of outcome as well as equality of opportunity. Discusses Spearman's theory of g that attempts to explain individual differences in intelligence. Contrasts efforts at genuinely reducing equality of outcome, including Aptitude X Treatment Interaction, Mastery Learning, and Thinking Skills…

Large representative samples of Negro and Mexican-American children from Kindergarten through 8th grade in largely de facto segregated schools were compared with white children in the same California school district on tests of mental abilities and scholastic achievement, personality inventories, and indices of socioeconomic and cultural…