The Supply of and Demand for Intelligence

Abstract

As stated in Chapter 1, this book examines the relationship between implicit intelligence policy and explicit social policy, focusing on college admissions at highly selective universities as the primary example. Because implicit policies are unarticulated and, therefore, elusive, this relationship must be viewed in terms of the various underlying pressures at work on the overlay of explicit policy. Many of these pressures grow out of influential bodies of theory. As a prelude to the examination of theoretical pressures in Part II, Part I looks at the general issues of access to the university and assessment of academic performance once access to the university is attained. This first chapter of Part I considers the problem of access—of opportunity allocation—from two important historical standpoints: university biases (regarding those other than the “white male elite”) and the emergence of conflicting merit and populist standards (in response to elitist admissions policies).