The controversy about the relative importance of heredity and environment and the role of parents in children's behavior explored by Harris is not new. Although her book offers no new policy guidance, it does offer some useful academic suggestions by clarifying the plentiful scientific evidence of the importance of genetics in behavior. (SLD)

Describes seven myths regarding the role of genes in determining behavior and the modifiability of behavior that permeate the thinking of many educators and psychologists. Examines each myth, dispels it, and states what are believed to be correct conclusions from different kinds of behavior-genetic and related data, considering the implications…

Discusses work by Arthur Jensen in addition to his well-known work on the genetics of intelligence. Includes studies of learning, memory, the cumulative-deficit hypothesis, Spearman's hypothesis, and the speed of information processing. (SLD)

Outlines eight premises of individuals who believe racial differences influence mental ability (e.g., IQ tests accurately measure mental ability and IQ tests are equally valid across racial, ethnic, and cultural groups), challenging the classicist model of intelligence on which hereditarian assumptions of racial disparity are based. Refutes each…

Pooled sibling attachment data to compare attachment relationships to mothers for 138 sibling pairs. Found that sibling relationships were significantly concordant when classified as secure/nonsecure but not when further subcategorized. Maternal insensitivity to both siblings was associated with concordance of sibling nonsecurity. Same gender…

Three articles discuss "The Bell Curve" and its theory that IQ is an inherited trait rather than an acquired skill. Topics include implications for educational designers, IQ tests, cognitive architecture, learning mechanisms, and abstract knowledge structures. (LRW)

This collection of papers is from a conference held at Odense University, Denmark on recent research in language acquisition in children. Following an introduction by the editors, it contains the following papers: "Development in a Connectionist Framework: Rethinking the Nature-Nurture Debate" (Kim Plunkett); "Experimental Evidence…

The impact of poverty and dispossesion is investigated, describing the manner in which social and cultural background affects upbringing and thereby affects intellectual functioning. (Author/KM)

In the United States, IQ tests are developed by and for whites. IQ tests and their derivates have been used on minorities not so much for prescriptive intervention purposes as for confirmation of suspiciously different behavior and for placement into special education and out of programs for the gifted, higher education, and advanced occupational…

The issue of race differences in intelligence, especially with respect to American black and white populations, is adjudged to be "nonsensical" in terms of the framing of the question, the populations sampled, the testing instruments utilized, and the concept of "intelligence" postulated. (Author/EH)

This article introduces three reviews of the book, Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effect of Family and Schooling in America by Christopher Jencks et al. Following the reviews are comments by Christopher Jencks. For related articles see TM 501 197-200. (MLP)

The principal author of Inequality: A Reassessment of the Effects of Family and Schooling in America (1972) comments on three reviews of the book. For related articles see TM 501 196-199. (MLP)

This study formulated a multivariate model of early infant competence from variables representing a transactional perspective of developing competence in early infancy. The measures used in the competence model were: birth weight; habituation index; personality ratings of the infants' social orientation and task orientation; ratings of maternal…

There are two kinds of hereditary influence, genetic inheritance and biological inheritance, that may respond to environmental determinants. The ability to speak is one genetically produced aspect of being human, and research studies based on the assumption that speech is innate to humans have found that infants appear to pay particular attention…