Education systems use IQ tests to help identify children for special education and gifted education programmes and to offer extra support. Researchers across the social and hard sciences study IQ test results also looking at everything from their relation to genetics , socio-economic status , academic achievement , and race.
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If you want to boast about your high IQ, you should have been able to work out the answers to the questions. And 49 is the missing number in the sequence. Despite the hype, the relevance, usefulness, and legitimacy of the IQ test is still hotly debated among educators, social scientists, and hard scientists. The first of these tests was developed by French psychologist Alfred Binet, who was commissioned by the French government to identify students who would face the most difficulty in school. At its conception, the IQ test provided a relatively quick and simple way to identify and sort individuals based on intelligence — which was and still is highly valued by society.
In the US and elsewhere, institutions such as the military and police used IQ tests to screen potential applicants. They also implemented admission requirements based on the results. Results were used to determine how capable a solider was of serving in the armed forces and identify which job classification or leadership position one was most suitable for.
Ironically, some districts in the US have recently employed a maximum IQ score for admission into the police force. The fear was that those who scored too highly would eventually find the work boring and leave — after significant time and resources had been put towards their training. Ethnocentrics and eugenicists, who viewed intelligence and other social behaviours as being determined by biology and race, latched onto IQ tests.
They held up the apparent gaps these tests illuminated between ethnic minorities and whites or between low- and high-income groups.
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Some maintained that these test results provided further evidence that socioeconomic and racial groups were genetically different from each other and that systemic inequalities were partly a byproduct of evolutionary processes. Brigham applied meticulous statistical analyses to demonstrate that American intelligence was declining, claiming that increased immigration and racial integration were to blame.
To address the issue, he called for social policies to restrict immigration and prohibit racial mixing. A few years before, American psychologist and education researcher Lewis Terman had drawn connections between intellectual ability and race. In , he wrote:. High-grade or border-line deficiency … is very, very common among Spanish-Indian and Mexican families of the Southwest and also among Negroes.
Eugenics, Race and Intelligence in Education by Clyde Chitty
Their dullness seems to be racial, or at least inherent in the family stocks from which they come … Children of this group should be segregated into separate classes … They cannot master abstractions but they can often be made into efficient workers … from a eugenic point of view they constitute a grave problem because of their unusually prolific breeding.
This critique continues today , with many researchers resistant to and alarmed by research that is still being conducted on race and IQ. But in their darkest moments , IQ tests became a powerful way to exclude and control marginalised communities using empirical and scientific language. These were people, eugenicists argued, who threatened to dilute the White Anglo-Saxon genetic stock of America.
- Book Review: Eugenics, Race, and Intelligence in Education.
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As a result of such eugenic arguments, many American citizens were later sterilised. The ruling, known as Buck v Bell , resulted in over 65, coerced sterilisations of individuals thought to have low IQs. For example, did you know that England was one of the last countries in Western Europe to have compulsory education? And that those who fought against its introduction did so on the basis that it would make the lower orders uppity and dissatisfied with the awful life they would still have to go on living.
Galton was a cousin of Darwin who believed intelligence was inherited. Burt was heavily influenced by Galton and spent his life seeking to prove that IQ was fixed more or less at birth. As is told in The Mismeasure of Man and Not in Our Genes — he faked results on research on twins separated at birth so as to support his genetic inheritance of intelligence theories. A snob, a fraud and someone who blocked opportunities for hundreds of thousands of young people, he remains one of my all-time personal super-villains.
Thatcher and Blair are quoted providing social policies on the basis of the genetic disposition of large sections of the population. This is a really excellent introduction to the idea of eugenics and has the added advantage of being a short, quick read. And it confirms all of my prejudices — so, really, what more could one ask for in a book? View all 7 comments.
Going to extremes
Dec 30, Laura Hellsten rated it really liked it. Must read for anyone within Education! Not that much fun and light, as it starts off with important scrutiny of our current systems, yet ends on a hopeful note! Sep 20, Conor rated it liked it. Has a useful summary of changes to english state education in the 20th century. Its outright rejection of the validity of IQ as a measure is to be admired. Overall tone is much too soft on 'old Labour'.
Contains some minor errors eg Marx did not offer to dedicate Capital to Darwin, Edward Aveling offered to dedicate some atheist pamphlets, Darwin declined - though this is tangential and does not detract from Chitty's argument, which should be taken on its own merit. Paul Jackson rated it liked it Feb 07, Blanc Blancv marked it as to-read Oct 16, Laikhuram marked it as to-read Oct 17, Ala' marked it as to-read Oct 31, I have heard about these programs. They make me cringe. I feel that the victims deserve some compensation because without children, they lack the support of others.
This is a very sad part of American history. I agree we must make sure it never happens again! It is indeed chilling, Linda. Coming from Georgia the Yerkes Primate Center was always a fun fieldtrip. I took some classes at Georgia State and got to see LANA up close and personal - she actually escaped from where they had her in the lab and came wondering into the break room where some of us were hanging out.
She literally came right up to me and held up her arms. Not knowing what to, I picked her up and put her on my hip she's fairly small for a full grown female chimp. Looking back I realize it wasn't the smartest thing since chimps can be vicious and though I figured out who she had to be - we didn't normally have chimps wandering the halls- still I knew nothing about how to properly interact with one.
She was amazingly sweet and seemed content to hold onto me much as a small child would. Then the researchers came around the corner - needless to say she was an expensive part of their language program - and they told her she had been a naughty girl and to come with them back to her "room". She climbed down and took one of their hands and went, just like that.
I remember it striking me just how intelligent she seemed, as if she understood what was being said around her and when we spoke to her she focused on one of us then the other. My friends started speaking baby talk to her as we'd heard she had the mentality of about a 4 or 5 year old and she definitely didn't like being talked down to! The point of all this rambling is that these chimps and the other primates that Yerkes worked with were initially intended to be used for the eugenics program. So they intended to perform selective breeding projects with them, sterilizing the ones that they thought were too "stupid" to reproduce etc.
I know that one of the others lost two babies and mourned them then when the researcher was pregnant and miscarried, the chimp cried with her and told her through sign lang about her losses. We seem to assume that as long as animals are what we experiment on it's all humane. Depriving them of having babies so that there is enough research to base our own eugenics future on seems like such a heinous thing from start to finish.
Every generation or so the characteristics that were selected for would likely have changed until we were turn into something monstrous. It's an interesting topic but scary as well. I'm thinking of doing an article on the chimps and bonobos at Yerkes. Do you think it would be interesting to others? This is chilling information, Natalie. Thank you very much for creating the article.
It's important that people know about the information that you've shared. I hope that the beliefs and activities of eugenics that you've described disappear from society. Other product and company names shown may be trademarks of their respective owners.
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Eugenics and Ellis Island In Henry Goddard wanted to prove the effectiveness of the intelligence test in differentiating the feeble minded from the normal population and went to Ellis Island to do so.
Forced Sterilization in the U. Further Reading and Personal Reaction When writing this article, I read a book that helped me frame what I wanted to say, and which provided what I then thought to be background information. The Mismeasure of Man. Questions must be on-topic, written with proper grammar usage, and understandable to a wide audience. This website uses cookies As a user in the EEA, your approval is needed on a few things.
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Intelligence Testing and the Beginning of Eugenics
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