You Think You Know Ghetto? Contemporizing the Dove “Black IQ Test”

Abstract

Measuring student intelligence has been problematic in the United States since stan dardized testing first began in the early 1900s. First developed in 1905, intelligence testing in the United States was popularized with the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test, with subsequent revisions through 1916 (most notably by Henry Goddard and Lewis Ter man) geared toward psychometric modifica tions such as increasing the number of ques tions, creating a ratio IQ, establishing a standard deviation, and scaling the test to more closely approximate a normally dis tributed curve (Valencia and Suzuki 2003). These modifications, which were intended to improve reliability, were flawed in one very important methodological way, how ever. The original sample of 1,000 children intentionally excluded African Americans, Latinos, and other minority children in or der to control for race (Valencia and Suzuki 2003; Zoref and Williams 1980). This original sample was almost exclusively white and middle class, setting the stage for later concerns regarding the accuracy of such tests in measuring intelligence in mi nority students. The furious debate that en sued throughout the academic community following the publication of The Bell Curve (Herrnstein and Murray 1994; Nisbett 1995) was pivotal in reviving the critique over the viability of standardized testing and, specifically, the degree to which cul tural biases, socioeconomic status, and other variables in such tests were responsi ble for lower scores among African Ameri cans. While several studies attribute test score differences to racial bias in testing (Scarr 1981; Valencia and Suzuki 2003; Vroon 1980; Zoref and Williams 1980), others find no basis for this claim (Jensen 1980) or argue that class position, differ ences in learning styles and perspectives on intelligence, and/or other environmental variables play a role in outcome discrepan cies between whites and nonwhites (Green and Griffore 1980; Gordon and Rubain 1980; Schmeiser and Ferguson 1978; Steele 1997). The omnipresence of standardized testing in student populations is illustrated by the most popular contemporary tests such as the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT), the Ameri can College Test (ACT), the Medical Col lege Admission Test (MCAT), the Law School Admission Test (LSAT), and the Graduate Record Examination (GRE). All of these employ many of the traditionally narrow conceptualizations of intelligence originally established by the Binet-Simon Intelligence Test and are used by some scholars to advance the notion that intelli gence differences between whites and racial minorities may be based in actual genetic or hereditary differences rather than cultural or environmental factors or in the testing con struct itself (Herrnstein and Murray 1994; Nisbett 1995). Do these kinds of standard ized tests reflect a white, Eurocentric bias? Do the common standardized tests used to evaluate students from all racial and ethnic backgrounds employ measures that are ade quately sensitive to cultural differences, *Please address all correspondence to Ken neth Laundra, Department of Social and Behav ioral Sciences/Sociology, University of Port land, 5000 N. Willamette, Portland, OR 97203; e-mail: laundra@up. edu. Editor's note: The reviewers were, in alpha betical order, Rebecca Bordt, Lauren Dundes, and Roxanna Harlow.