+ All Categories
Home > Documents > An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

Date post: 07-Jan-2017
Category:
Upload: lybao
View: 217 times
Download: 1 times
Share this document with a friend
19
DOCUMENT RESUME ED 087 823 UD 014 013 AUTHOR Gordon, Edmund W.; Green, Derek TITLE An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental, Economic, and Educational. ERIC-IRCD Urban Disadvantaged Series, Number 35, January 1974. INSTITUTION Columbia Univ., New.York, N.Y. ERIC Clearinghouse on the Urban Disadvantaged. SPONS AGENCY National Inst. of Education (DHEW), Washington, D.C. PUB DATE Jan 74 CONTRACT OEC-0-9-420088-2327 NOTE 18p. AVAILABLE FROM Dr. Edmund W. Gordon, Department of Applied Human Development and Guidance, Box 75, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 10027 (reprints only; no charge) JOURNAL CIT American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, v44 n1 p4-18 Jan 1974 EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29 DESCRIPTORS Academic Achievement; Academic Aptitude; *Bias; Book Reviews; Disadvantaged Environment; *Economic Opportunities; *Educational Opportunities; Environmental Influences; Heredity; *Intelligence Differences; *Literature Reviews; Racial Differences; Social Differences; Social Mobility; Socioeconomic Status ABSTRACT Those of us who are committed to the pedagogical enterprise are called upon to re-examine, clarify, and perhaps justify the presuppositions, methods, and goals that provide the framework within which education and development are carried on. Recent publications by several writers have reintroduced notions that demand critical examination, particularly with reference to the processes of education, schooling, and upward mobility of people of low status in our society. These works have been the basis of recent attempts to us c educational and behavioral science data to support the assertion that schooling can make little difference in the efforts of low-status people to achieve equality or a fair chance at survival. Two primary lines or argument have been advanced: (1) it is asserted that some ethnic groups or races are genetically inferior to others and thus are incapable of benefiting from schooling to the same extent as are the others. Among the scholars whose work has been used to support this position are Eysenk, Herrnstein, Jensen, and Shockley; and (2) it is asserted that schools make little difference and are not effective forces in changing the life chances of the pupils who pass through them. Among the scholars whose works have been used to support this position are Coleman and Jencks. What is more important than how these scholars feel and what may be their motives is what the media try to tell us about the meaning of this work and what the society decides to do about the problems at which their work is directed. (Author/JM)
Transcript
Page 1: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

DOCUMENT RESUME

ED 087 823 UD 014 013

AUTHOR Gordon, Edmund W.; Green, DerekTITLE An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality:

Developmental, Economic, and Educational. ERIC-IRCDUrban Disadvantaged Series, Number 35, January1974.

INSTITUTION Columbia Univ., New.York, N.Y. ERIC Clearinghouse onthe Urban Disadvantaged.

SPONS AGENCY National Inst. of Education (DHEW), Washington,D.C.

PUB DATE Jan 74CONTRACT OEC-0-9-420088-2327NOTE 18p.AVAILABLE FROM Dr. Edmund W. Gordon, Department of Applied Human

Development and Guidance, Box 75, Teachers College,Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 10027 (reprintsonly; no charge)

JOURNAL CIT American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, v44 n1 p4-18 Jan1974

EDRS PRICE MF-$0.65 HC-$3.29DESCRIPTORS Academic Achievement; Academic Aptitude; *Bias; Book

Reviews; Disadvantaged Environment; *EconomicOpportunities; *Educational Opportunities;Environmental Influences; Heredity; *IntelligenceDifferences; *Literature Reviews; Racial Differences;Social Differences; Social Mobility; SocioeconomicStatus

ABSTRACTThose of us who are committed to the pedagogical

enterprise are called upon to re-examine, clarify, and perhapsjustify the presuppositions, methods, and goals that provide theframework within which education and development are carried on.Recent publications by several writers have reintroduced notions thatdemand critical examination, particularly with reference to theprocesses of education, schooling, and upward mobility of people oflow status in our society. These works have been the basis of recentattempts to us c educational and behavioral science data to supportthe assertion that schooling can make little difference in theefforts of low-status people to achieve equality or a fair chance atsurvival. Two primary lines or argument have been advanced: (1) it isasserted that some ethnic groups or races are genetically inferior toothers and thus are incapable of benefiting from schooling to thesame extent as are the others. Among the scholars whose work has beenused to support this position are Eysenk, Herrnstein, Jensen, andShockley; and (2) it is asserted that schools make little differenceand are not effective forces in changing the life chances of thepupils who pass through them. Among the scholars whose works havebeen used to support this position are Coleman and Jencks. What ismore important than how these scholars feel and what may be theirmotives is what the media try to tell us about the meaning of thiswork and what the society decides to do about the problems at whichtheir work is directed. (Author/JM)

Page 2: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

N\ U S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH,EDUCATION &WELFARENATIONAL INSTITUTE OF

EDUCATION

CO IIIIS DOCUMENT NAS BEEN REPROIlUCE0 EXACTLY AS RECEIVED PROMN 111E PE RSON OR ORGANIZATION ORIGINMING IT POINTS OF VIEW DR OPINIONS

CO sraito DO NOT NECESSARILY REPRE

CDSENT OF FICIAL NATIONAL INSTITUTE OFEDUCATION POSITION OR POLICY

Ca ERIC/IRCD URBAN DISADVANTAGEDwr.-

, SERIES

Number 35, January 1974

An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality:Developmental, Economic, and Educational

EDMUND W. GORDON, Ed.D.with DEREK GREEN, M.A.

Reprinted with permission ofAmerican Journal of Orthopsychiatry

American Orthopsychiatric Association1775 Broadway

New York, New YorkVol. 44, No. I January 1974

ERIC Information Retrieval Center on the DisadvantagedInstitute for Urban and Minority Education

Teachers College, Columbia Universityand

Educational Testing Service

Page 3: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

This paper is one in the ERIC/IRCD Urban Disadvantaged Series produced bythe ERIC Information Retrieval Center on the Disadvantaged under ContractOEC-0-9-420088-2327 between the National Institute of Education (DHEW) andTeachers College, Columbia University. It has been assigned the ERIC/IRCD acces-sion number UD 014 013 and is available without cost from

ERIC/IRCDTeachers College, Columbia UniversityNew York, New York 10027

during the period immediately following publication; thereafter, it can be obtainedfrom:

ERIC Document Reproduction Service (EDRS)Leasco Information Products, Inc. (LIPCO)P.O. Drawer 0Bethesda, Maryland 20014

In ordering from EDRS, use the document's assigned ED number. The paper will beabstracted in a monthly issue and announced in the semi-annual and annual indexesof Research in Education (RIE). Its ED ordering number will be listed in these in-dexes or can be obtained by writing to ERIC/I RCD.

This paper was prepared pursuant to a contract with the National Institute of Educa-tion, U. S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Contractors undertakingsuch projects under Government sponsorship are encouraged to express freely theirjudgment in professional and technical matters. Points of view or opinions do not,therefore, necessarily represent official National Institute of Education position orpolicy.

January 1974

Page 4: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

Reprinted from

AMERICAN JOURNAL OFORTHOPSYCHIATRY

"PERMISSION TO REPRODUCE THIS COPY-RIGHTED MATERIAL HAS BEEN GRANTED BY

American Orthopsychiatric Association

TO ERIC AND ORGANIZATIONS OPERATINGUNDER AGREEMENTS WITH THE NATIONAL IN-STITUTE OF EDUCATION. FURTHER REPRO-DUCTION OUTSIDE THE ERIC SYSTEM RE-QUIRES PERMISSION OF THE COPYRIGHTOWNER."

Page 5: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

ilmer. J, Orthopsychiat, 44(1), January 1974

SPECIAL REVIEW

An Affluent Society's Excuses

for Inequality: Developmental, Economic, and Educational

Edmund W. Gordon, Ed.D.with Derek Green, M.A.

Teachers College, Columbia University, New York

Those of us who are comniitted to thepedagogical enterprise note with inter-

est, and often frustration, the recurringthemes that challenge the conduct and ad-vancement of our undertaking. Unlike thehistorian or sociologist, who might viewthese themes with interest but with somedetachment, we are called upon to re-ex-amine, clarify, and perhaps justify the pre-suppositions, methods, and goals that pro-vide the framework within which educationand development are carried on. Indeedthis perhaps is as it should he, in view ofthe: ambivalence with which these con-cerns are treated by a society that, on theone hand appears to value the perceivedoutcomes of the educational process, whileon the other is often reluctant to invest theresources necessary to improve it, particu-larly when benefits seem likely to accrueto those who are on the lower end of theethnic and socio-economic status scales.

Recent publications by several writershave reintroduced notions that demandcritical examination, particularly with ref-erence to the processes of education,schooling, and upward mobility of peopleof low status in our society. These works

have been the hasis of recent attempts touse educational and behavioral sciencedata to support the assertion that schoolingcan make little difference in the efforts oflow-status peopleBlacks, Chicanos, Na-tive Americans, Puerto Ricans, and pov-erty stricken whitesto achieve equalityor a fair chance at survival. Two primarylines of argument have been advanced:

1. It is asserted that some ethnic groupsor races are genetically inferior to othersand thus are incapable of benefiting fromschooling to the same extent as are others.Among the scholars whose work has beenused to support this position are Eysenk,Herrnstein, Jensen, and Shockley.

2. It is asserted that schools make littledifference and are not effective forces inchanging the life chances of the pupils whopass through them. Among the scholarswhose work has been used to support thisposition are Coleman and Jencks.

In the debate that has emerged aroundthese two issues, considerable energy hasbeen directed at attacking the individualswhose work has been used, and some haveeven objected to the scientific study of thequestions as being immoral or politically

This essay, invited by the Editors for publication in the Journal, reviews recent work byTheodosius Dobzhansky, Hans Eysenck, Richard Herrnstein, Christopher Jencks, and ArthurJensen. Publications reviewed within this essay are indicated by an asterisk in the list of refer-ences at the end.

4

Page 6: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

EDMUND W. GORDON 5

dangerous. I want to disassociate myselffrom any of the arguments directed atlimiting free research inquiry and seriousdiscussion of the issues, I believe that thepursuit of knowledge and disculsion mustbe uncensored, and I shall not use thisplatform to join the argument concerningthe individuals or their motives. However,there are differences among these scholars,and some can he clearly identified as moredemocratic and humane in their convic-tions than others, What is more importantthan how these scholars feel and what maybe their motives is what the media try totell us about the meaning of this work andwhat the society decides to do about theproblems at which their work is directed.

It should he of particular significance toreaders of this Journal that those scholarlyor not so scholarly pronouncements thatsupport the racist convictions prevalent inthe society get a better press than thosethat do not. Statements and findings thatsupport our preference not to spendmoney on the poor or to help low-statusminorities are given prominence, whilefindings that could lend support to morehumanistic developmental interventionssomehow seem to be ignored,

For example, when Jensen's work wasbeing published by the Harvard Educa-tional Review and picked up by the pressall across this country, there were alreadymajor works on the subject that had beenignored. About a year and a half prior tothe attention given Jensen's speculations,Margaret Mead and several equally dis-tinguished scholars published, through theColumbia University Press, the proceed-ings of the American Association for theAdvancement of Science Symposium onScience Lind the Concept Race.. Neither theminority press or the so-called liberal whitepress ran major stories on that contribu-tion to scientific understanding. Could thatwork have been ignored because it did notcome to the popular conclusion that blacksare genetically inferior to whites? And whywas that work not highlighted when thepress picked up Jensen's work, even ifJensen was not a meticulous enough scho-lar to have included it and similar worksin his own review of existing research onthe subject?

In 1972, Arthur R. Jensen's book, Ge-netics and Education 12 was published bothby Methuen in London and Harper & Rowin the United States, It is the first of aseries of three volumes, the second ofwhich has recently become available,'"with a third volume to be publishedshortly. In Genetics and Education, theauthor has collected a series of articles to-gether with a preface that chronicles theevents that led up to the writing and publi-cation in the Harvard Educational Reviewof the article, "How Much Can We BoostIQ and Scholastic Achievement," and alsodocuments the reactions, both academicand political, that its publication provoked.This article, with some minor corrections,forms the basis and perhaps raison d'etreof the book.

The republication of this article in bookform indicates to some degree the impor-tance it has assumed, and will serve tobroaden the audience already reachedthrough the Harvard Educational Reviewpublication. These factorstogether withthe continuing debate it has fostered, andthe subsequent contributions of other scho-lars, which seem to lend support to Jen-sen's viewsmake further discussion ap-propriate and necessary.

I ensen, from an examination of the evi-dence for the success of compensatory

education programs for the disadvantaged,concludes that such programs have failed,the measure of their failure being the ex-tent to which they have been able to boostfor any appreciable length of time the IQsof the participating students. From thisexamination he goes on to theorize that thereason for the ineffectiveness of such pro-grams lies in the total environmentalist ap-proach to the problem of IQ differences.Jensen advocates that we examine the pos-sibility of the genetic determination ofsuch differences, and offers evidence froma number of studies to support the viewthat a large portion of IQ variability, per-haps as much as 80%, can be accountedfor by genetic factors. From this line of ar-gument, the author suggests that the differ-ences consistently found between groups(e.g.. the fifteen point difference betweenthe mean IQ of whites and the mean IQ of

Page 7: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

6 SPECIAL REVIEW

blacks) may in fact he genetically basedand that attempts to decrease these differ-ences may necessitate the employment ofbiological techniques rather than those ofpsychology or education.

Differences in IQ scores between socialor ethnic groups may indicate different pat-terns of ability, and Jensen has, from hisown researches, identified two levels oflearning that appear to be differentiallyassociated with class differences amongchildren. Level I ability (learning throughassociation) is found more frequentlyamong low-SES children (including mostmembers of certain ethnic minorities),while children from high-SES families(largely white) are endowed with LevelII ability, which permits learning throughconceptualization and is highly correlatedwith IQ.

Jensen discusses the educational impli-cations of this theory and indicates possibleteaching strategies and educational em-phases that take these into consideration.Among his recommendations are the fol-lowing:

1. Educators should teach skills directlyto Level I learners, rather than attempt toincrease overall cognitive development.

2. IQ tests should be deemphasized as amethod for determining instructional out-comes.

3. Research in education should beaimed toward the discovery and implemen-tation of teaching methods based on aknowledge of the pattern of functionalability which specific student groupspossess.

The logic of these arguments for thecustomizing of learning experiences hasbeen largely ignored in the responses toJensen's claim that the patterns themselvesare genetically determined. When that de-bate has been adequately dealt with, if notresolved, the problems involved in match-ing individual learning patterns to individ-ually prescribed learning experiences willstill confront us. Hopefully these problemswill not have to wait for the nature-nurturecontroversy to be settled.

In the second of Jensen's three volumeset, Educability and Group Differences, herepeats the earlier theses and presents amore detailed account of the issues and

evidence concerning "race differences inintelligence." Without retreating from hisearlier conclusions, Jensen treats the issueswith greater precision, and in his elabora-tions leaves considerably less room for dis-tortions or exaggerated misapplications ofhis position. His central thesis as reflectedin this work is that individuals and groupsdiffer along a number of physical and be-havioral dimensic is, including intellectualability and ment..I function. After reviewof most of the relevant research, he isconvinced that environmental and geneticfactors are involved in the average dis-parity between blacks and whites in theUnited States on measures of intelligenceand educability. Of that disparity, rep-resented by a mean score for blacks thatis about fifteen points lower than the meanscore for whites, between 50% and 75%of the difference appears to be best ac-counted for by genetic factors, with theremainder attributed to environmental fac-tors and their interaction with the geneticdifferences.

This latest work reflects the seriousnesswith which Jensen has approached thepositions of some of his critics. Except forthe more polemical arguments advancedagainst him, he addresses most of the issuesaround which his position has been chal-lenged. He discusses issues related to withinand between group heritability, equatingfor socioeconomic variables, motivation,culture-biased tests, teache expectancy,environmental inequalities, health and nu-trition, intelligence of "racial hybrids,"and other issues. His treatment of theseissues is variable but this is unimportantsince they bear only tangential relationsto the central issue. In a sense, it is un-fortunate that concern with ethnic differ-ences in the quality of intellectual functionhas cla; ;ted so much of Jensen's attentionas well as that of the public. For althoughthe author makes much of the consistentfindings of difference and the weight ofavailable evidence on the side of geneticexplanations, when it comes to what we areto do for groups, and particularly for in-dividuals, good educational programming,wholesome and purposeful developmentalconditions, greater diversity of curriculaand goals, and greater attention to the

Page 8: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

EDMUND W. GORDON 7

needs of individual learners are indicated,These arc Jensen's recommendations.

They are also the hallmark of effectivepedagogy. But Jensen is concerned withmore. He believes that to generate effectiveeducational treatments we must first gen-erate better knowledge of the mechanic-isms of effective learning. He sees thedisparity in intellectual function and educa-tional achievement between blacks andwhites as a major national problem towhich simple notions of equalizing educa-tional opportunity are insufficient. He seeshis work in support of concepts of groupand individual differences (geneticallybased) as providing the impetus for greaterattention being given to diversity of educa-tional opportunity. To the extent that suchdiversity is not seen as placing (or is notutilized to place) arbitrary limits on theoptions available to learners because ofethnic group or social class from whichthey come, the concept can provide a pro-gressive force in education.

On the whole, Eysenck's Race, Intelli-gence and Education 41 can be taken as

a more simply written version of Jensen'swork. However, Eysenck deals much moreadequately with the concept of race, andplaces the hereditarian view in a morescientific perspective. It is advanced as oneof two major hypotheses put forward toaccount for certain observed conditions,and as the one that he oelieves the "facts"favor at the present time. He goes beyondJensen's earlier work in providing substan-tial evidence to support his position, never-theless continually cautioning his readersthat hypotheses are not proofs. This con-cern for relating the issues at hand to theways of science is one of the distinctivefeatures of the work. Eysenck pays par-ticular attention to the process of theo-rizing and the elimination of rival hypoth-eses, arguing quite soundly that thosecritics who maintain that circumstantialevidence is insufficient to support an he-reditarian hypothesis regarding IQ differ-ences, fail to acknowledge that this is

consonant with the way in which scienceoperates. Disparate pieces of evidence thatcans he assimilated into a particular theo-

retical framework do in fact lend supportto it. This is especially true where com-peting . hypotheses cannot adequately ac-count for the evidence.

Eysenck challenges critics of this posi-tion to "account" for the fact that whenwhites and Negroes are matched on educa-tion, socioeconomic status, and living area,uifferences are only slightly reduced as faras IQ is concerned: the even more dam-aging fact that higher-class Negroes, whencompared with lower-class whites, are stillinferior in IQ. In posing this question, heobviously does not deal with the argumentthat matching for education, SES, and liv-ing area in racist societies does not resultin groups exposed to similar or equal con-ditions of life. Nor does he fail to avoidrepeating the error that Jensen and mostinvestigators have made when they haveneglected to control for intergenerationaleffects of economic, ethnic, and socialstatus.

In a second general theme, Eysenckdeals with the practical application of sci-entific discoveries to educational practice.Effective programs, Eysenck argues, can beimplemented only when relevant facts areknown, and this-can be accomplished onlythrough unfettered and adequately sup-ported research programs. In response tothe expressed belief that if IQ is largely amatter of genei then all programs of edu-cation aimed at those with low abilities areinevitably doomed to failure, the authorpoints to the oft cited example of phenyl-ketonuria and indicates how a knowledgeof the mechanism through which geneticaction affects a condition can lead to effec-tive environmental control. Thus he arguesthat an understanding of the way in whichintelligence may be influenced by heredityis a prime requisite for any educationalprogram geared toward helping individualswith low IQs.

Whereas Jensen emphasizes the impor-tance of functional patterns, Eysenc!:speaks primarily to the importance of highIQ for education, especially higher educa-tion. Maintaining that the abilities associ-ated with high intelligence are essential forhigher academic success, he considers itunreasonable for any racial group to dis-regard the importance of IQ as a prere-

Page 9: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

8 SPECIAL REVIEW

quisite to academic attainment. On this is-sue he states:

It makes no sense to reject the very notion ofsuch abilities as being important . . . and atthe same time demand access to institutionsclosely geared to the view that such abilitiesare absolutely fundamental to successful study. . any lowering of standards of admittancewith respect to IQ would demonstrably lead toa disasterous lowering of standards of com-petence...

For this reason as well as otl:rs, policiesaimed at providing proportionate racialrepresentation in colleges and universitieswithout regard for IQ are in his view mis-guided.

Although virtually all the evidence pre-sented relating racial differences to IQ dif-ferences is drawn from studies involvingblack samples, Eysenck emphasizes thatthe issue is not simply one of black versuswhite. He points out that the tested intelli-gence of the Irish population is quite simi-lar to that of the black American popula-tion, (Interestingly the author suggestssome possible mechanisms through whichthese "deficient" populations might haveemerged as non-random selections from alarger group. It is conjectured that selectivemigration of high IQ members of the Irishpopulation may have left a gene pool forlow IQ in the home country, while heclaims it may have been Africans of lowintellectual ability who were shipped asslaves. Eysenck also presents an argumentsimilar to that advanced by informed stu-dents of Afro-American history, whichholds that if the alleged low quality of in-herited aspects of intellectual function arcthe culpable agents in the 2erformance ofblacks in the United States, it may be afunction of genocide practiced against themost able and rebellious slaves rather thanthe capture of the less able.) Speakingagain to the necessity for dealing with theissue in a non-racial fashion Eysenckwrites:

. . . even if there were no Negroes or otherminority groups in a country, there would stillbe bright and dull children, and the problemsposed by their existence would be equallygreat, although the emotion invested wouldperhaps be less.

William Shockley," Professor of En-gineering Science at Stanford Univer-

sity, has asked us to consider, as "think-ing exercise," the possibility of eugeniccontrol to limit the production of such in-dividuals through a voluntary, remuneratedsterilization program. Shockley, basing hisarguments on the same data that Jensenused to determine the heritability of IQarrives at the same conclusions, namelythat IQ has a heritability of 80% and alsothat the average IQ difference betweenblack and white populations in the UnitedStates is genetic in origin. This, togetherwith the fact that those members of thepopulation who are most deficient in IQtend also to be more prolific breeders thanthose more well endowed genetically,raises the specter in Shockley's mind of a"down breeding" of the total population inintellectual ability. His fears for the con-tinuation of society if this dysgenic trend isallowed to continue, are expressed in thefollowing:

With the advent of nuclear weapons, manhas in effect reached the point of no returnin the necessity to continue his intellectualevolution. Unless his collective mental abilitycan enable him reliably to nredict conse-quences of his actions, it is possible that hemay provoke his own extinction. . .

Shockley leaves no donut as to the sourcefrom which the main threat arises. Foralthough, in theory, any voluntary sterili-zation program would include the geneti-cally inferior of any race or class, hewrites:

Nature has color-coded groups of individualsso that statistically reliable predictions oftheir adaptability to intellectually rewardingand effective lives. can easily be made andprofitably be used by the pragmatic man inthe street.

T he criticisms of Jensen's position havecome from a number of sources and

have emphasized different aspects of hisargument. The most general criticismconies from those who see in Jensen's workthe recurring attempt to deal with the"nature-nurture" problem, which some seeas a futile exercise based on a naive con-ception of the interplay between geneticand environmental factors in behavior.

Page 10: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

EDMUND W. GORDON 9

Birch,2 although writing in a context notdirectly related to the debate ensuing fromJensen's work, highlights this problem.(Indeed Birch's article antedates Jensen'sand forms part of a collection of papersedited by Margaret Mead and others. Thishook represents the end products of a

symposium held under the auspices of theAmerican Association for the Advance-ment of Science to examine the concept ofrace as it is elucidated by scientific study.)Thus Birch argues that the nature-nurturecontroversy stems primarily from a con-fusion between the concepts "genetic" and"determined," and that while all aspects ofan organism may he thought to be 100%genetic, they arc not 100% determined.Phenotypic expression is the result of acontinuous biochemical and physiologicalinteraction of gene complex, cytoplasm,internal milieu, and external environmentthroughout the life span of the organism.In as much as IQ is a phenotypic charac-teristic it is virtually meaningless to at-

.tempt to determine the relative proportionsof environmental and genetic influencesthat contribute to its expression.

Theodosius Dobzhansky,4 the eminentgeneticist, has leveled criticism at severalaspects of Jensen's thesis. Two of thesebases for disagreement will be examined,first the limitations of the genetic-IQ stud-ies used to support the heritability esti-mates, and secondly the limitations of theconcept of "heritability" itself. The data onwhich the determination of the heritabilityof IQ is based are derived from studies thatcompare the IQs of identical twins rearedtogether and apart (this provides the mostdirect evidence on which the effects of en-vironments are determined, since mono-zygous twins have identical genes). Othermore indirect evidence is supplied by stud-ies of fraternal twins, cotoparison of theIQs of adopted children with those of theirbiological and adoptive parents, and therelationship between the IQs of variousgenerations within a family group. Dob-zhansky indicates that, with respect tothese studies, they predominantly concernCaucasian, middle-class samples, thus mak-ing questionable their applicability to otherpopulations. Furthermore, "neither thetwins nor siblings reared apart, nor the

adopted children have been exposed to thefull range of environments which occur inthe societies in which they live." In effect,then, a true sampling of the effects of theenvironment has not been obtained. Dob-zhansky emphasizes the several postulatesconcerning heritability:

1. Heritability is a property of a popula-tion and not an intrinsic property of a trait,in this instance, intelligence,

2. Heritability depends upon the extentto which genetic Lind environmental factorsare uniform or heterogeneous.

3. The estimation of heritability betweendifferent populations is much more com-plex than that within populations.

4. Differences found in the average IQscores between races and social classes,need not be genetically conditioned to thesame extent as are the individual differ-ences within groups.

On this last point Jensen is firmly criti-cized for invalidly using the heritability ofIQ differences that arc found within a par-ticular population, and are thereby limitedby the specific conditions prevailing in thatpopulation, to measure the heritability ofpopulation means.

Other scholars have similarly addressedthemselves to the problems of the deter-mination of heritability and its limited ap-plicability. Hirsch 10 writes:

Such measurement naturally requires a per-fectly balanced experimental designall geno-types -(or their trait-relevant components)measured against all environments (or theirtrait - relevant components). Few, if any, be-havioral studies have been so thorough, andcertainly not any human studies.Only when we consider the number of .possi-ble genotypes and the number of potential en-vironments that may influence trait expressiondo we begin to realize how narrowly limitedis the range of applicability for any obtainedheritability measure. (pp. 42-43)

One further aspect of the heritabilityquestion merits consideration here. This

',concerns the possible interactions betweengenotype and environment.

In determining the heritability of IQ,Jensen includes an estimate of the interac-tion of genetic and environmental factorsbut indicates that the contribution this in-teraction makes to the overall variabilityamong IQ scores is rather insignificant.

Page 11: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

10 SPECIAL REVIEW

Goldstein" cautions however that such in-teractive effects need not always he in-significant, and points to recent advancesin medical science to indicate the dramaticinteractive effects that environments canexert on genetically determined physicaldisorders:

The discovery of insulin, the isolation of vita-min D, the production of tuberculostatic drugs,the uncovering and control of phenylketonuriaare all those exceptional environmentalchanges which will make this interaction termsignificant. They indicate that environmentseverywhere are not merely supportive ofhereditary potentialities, but can, at times,reverse deleterious effects. The great achieve-ments of mankind lie in making that interac-tion term significant. Indeed it could almostbe a maxim for schools of education, psy-chology, public health and medicine: "Makethat interaction significant.- (p. 20)

Perhaps then Jensen may he too pessi-mistic in suggesting that differences in IQif genetically determined will not be mini-mized via manipulations of the environ-ment.

Another issue concerning ethnicity andgenetics around which confusion seems topersist in all of these works is the inter-changeable use of the same ethnic grouplabels to refer to biological race as well asto social race. Fried sheds interesting lighton this issue. According to Fried,7 thehumanistic intentions of most investigator,who have studied intelligenc,,, ability, orachievement endowment among differentraces do not alter the fact that their stud-ies have invariably been based on racialconstructs that are destructive and anti-social, in addition to being unscientific.In almost all studies the so-called racialbackground of individual respondents andrespondent populations has been derived inways that show no resemblance to meansused by genetic specialists. In those fewcases where any information is given aboutcriteria of assortment, one usually findsthat skin color has been the sole or dom-inant criterion, and that as measured by theeye. In other words, the actual geneticbackground of the subjects is uncontrolled.The classic study by Shuey .2" on the testingof Negro. intelligence illustrates the racistimplications of investigations conceived inthis mode. In fact, there is as yet no study

on it so-called racial sample that adequatelylinks intelligence, potential ability, educa-bility, or even achievement to a specifiableset of genetic coordinates associated withan aggregate larger than a family line orperhaps lineage.

The most useful studies linking race andcertain specified socially valued traits makeno pretense of dealing with biogeneticrace: rather, they openly work with cate-gories of "social race." A case in point isthe massive survey by Coleman,a whichfocused on psychological reactions of be-ing identified and identifying oneself as aNegro in the United States. If race is tobe treated as a sociocultural construct, itis important to get the individual's views onhis own identification and the identificationhe applies to others. However, if race is tohe treated as a biologicvl construct, the layindividual's views of his own racial identityor that of anyone else are unqualified andimmaterial.

InSeptember 1971 an article appeared in

The Atlantic magazine, titled simply,"IQ," under the authorship of RichardHerrnstein," professor of psychology atHarvard University. In his extremely read-able article, Professor Herrnstein describesthe gropings of philosophers and scientistsfor a reasonable definition of the conceptof intelligence and for ways of measuringthis attrihute, The triumph scored by Binetin Paris in developing the first usable in-telligence test, and the subsequent rapidspread of the techniques and instrumentsthroughout the Western world, are de-scribed. The author deals with many of theproblems often encountered in discussionsof intelligence and its measurement. Intreating the controversy surrounding thenature of intelligence he concludes:

Even at hest, however, data and analysis cantake us only so far in saying what intelligenceis. At some point, it becomes a matter ofdefinition . . . at the bottom subjective judge-ment must decide what we want the n.casureof intelligence to measure.

With regard to the predictive validity ofIQ scores, Herrnstein is also careful to in-dicate the cautions that must he observedboth in dealing with evidence derived cor-relatimally, and also the other factors that

Page 12: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

EDMUND W. GORDON I I

must he taken into account as contributingto, say, school success or other outcomes.Some minimum IQ, Herrnstein argues,seems to be prerequisite for a large numberof successes, but it is never the sole require-ment for any practical endeavor.

In his treatment of the observed IQ scoredifferences between social classes, Herrn-stein writes:

It is one thing to note the correlation betweensocial class and IQ but something else to ex-plain, or even interpret it.... Since a family'ssocial standing depends partly on the bread-winner's livelihood, there might be further cor-relation between IQ and occupation.

Further support for the high predictivepower of IQ scores is drawn from Ter-man's Genetic Studies of Genius. In thisstudy, a sample of over 1,500 Californiachildren with an average IQ of around I SO

was followed over the course of some 30years, High IQ was found to correlate witha host of factors, including amount ofschooling, high status occupations, andhigh income. To pit it in Herrnstein'swords:

An IQ test can he given in an hour or twoto a child and from this infinitesimally small

. sample of his output, deeply important predic-tions followabout schoolwork, occupation,income, satisfaction with life and even lifeexpectancy.

"This infinitesimally small sample" of out-put does indeed seem to he extremelypowerful. What is its source? Why do somepeople have more than others and can wemanipulate the quantities within individ-uals'? Herrnstein addresses himself to thesequestions indirectly by going into a con-siderably detailed discussion of Jensen'swork on the heritability of intelligence,particularly the methods and the studiesfrom which the heritability was obtained.He concludes that little doubt exists re-garding the 80% genetic contribution tointelligence that Jensen found amongNorth American and Western Europeanwhites. Concerning whether the differencesfound between the average IQs of whitesand blacks in the United States is of geneticorigin, Herrnstein believes that a neutralcommentator would have to concede that,given the present state of knowledge, thecase is not settled. In subsequent discus-

sions, the author does not deal with racialdifferences but applies the 80% heritabilityestimate to the total US population andspeculates on the possible social and politi-cal implications of the heritability of IQdifferences as it applies to different socialclasses.

Given the possibility that differences inmental abilities are inherited, that successrequires these abilities, and that earningsand prestige depend upon success, Herrn-stein considers the possibility that the heri-tability of intelligence may tend to increasethe stratification of society, precipitating,as he puts it, "a low-capacity (intellectuallyand otherwise) residue . . . most likely tobe born to parents who have similarlyfailed." Such a situation is almost houndto arise where the environment presentsless obstacles to the development of intelli-gence, thus increasing its heritability, andwhere social mobility becomes more possi-ble as traditional harriers are toppled. Ineffect, then, "by removing arbitrary bar-riers between classes, society has encour-aged the creation of biological barriers."This holds equally well for IQ as for theother traits that might contribute to suc-cess.

In Herrnstein's view, the course is wellset, Attempts to invert or equalize the in-come structure as it presently exists arefutile since these would merely create achannelling of high intelligence individualsinto the now newly "desirable" occupationson the one hand, or introduce the peril ofcritical shortages in professions that arecrucial to the c induct of society and re-quire high intelligence. Herrnstein askswhat is to he the lot of those who are "un-able to master the common occupationsand cannot compete for success andachievement?"

Thequestion of unequal distribution of

the resources of society, which Herrn-stein sees as being largely determined bythe unequal distribution of IQ, is againbrought into focus by Jencks,Il in his book,Inequality. Here Jencks attempts to dem-onstrate, based on his reanalysis of a va-riety of secondary data, that the process ofschooling has little effect upon the way inwhich income is distributed in the society.

Page 13: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

12 SPECIAL REVIEW

The author's basic concern is to demon-strate that if society really is concernedwith the equalization of income or eco-nomic status, it must go about it more orless directly rather than by attempting todo so by manipulating marginal institu-tions such as schools.

Considering the variety of factors thatmight contribute to differences in occupa-tional statuses of males, Jencks concludesthat, at the most, such factors as amountof schooling, family background and testscores, account for only about one half.The other 50% of the variation must beaccounted for by factors other than. thosecommonly considered to he most impor-tant or perhaps those for which we have nomeasures.

These "other factors" are merely guessedat by Jencks. He suggests that personalityvariables and luck may play a part in de-termining occupational status. A consid-eration of the other possible determinantsof success is also relevant to the argumentpresented by Herrnstein, for although hesuggests that IQ is the paramount deter-minant of occupational status he recognizesthat:

. . . there may be other inherited traits thatdiffer among people and contribute to theirsuccess in life. . , ,The meritocracy concernsnot just inherited intelligence, but all inheritedtraits affecting success, whether or not weknow of their importance or have tests togauge them.

In order for Herrnstein's hypothesizedcaste system to evolve, it would he first nec-essary for the other traits contributing tosuccess to he heritable. Secondly theyshould be correlated with IQ within eachindividual and preferably increase in heri-tability at about the same rate as IQ. Thelikelihood of this seems rather remote. IfJencks's analysis is reasonably accurate, itappears that at the present time substantialnumbers of individuals who have similartest scores, family background, and school-ing, will find themselves in occupations thatare unequal in status, thus ensuring someamount of crossbreeding between individ-uals having different intellectual abilities.

Butlet us return to the problems of edu-

cation and the value of schooling. Thedata of the several studies that Jencks and

his associates have reanalyzed use intelli-gence and achievement tests scores as theirprimary indicators of competence. None ofthese studies is concerned with happinessand social usefulness as outcome dimen-sions. Jencks acknowledges some of thelimitations of intelligence and achievementtesting and dismisses the affective domainwith a four-page chapter in which he con-cedes that he knows little about this areaand has not given attention to it in his re-analysis. Now there are several problemshere,

1. There is no question but that if welook at intelligence and achievement testscores for large numbers of pupils and tryto relate them to the characteristics ofschools as we usually measure them, wefind little variation that can be attributedto the impact of differences in the qualityof schooling. This was one of the majorfindings from the Coleman study.3 How-ever, even Jencks concedes that Coleman'sfindings and the other available data didnot include assessments of teacher-pupiland pupil-pupil interaction. These andother interactions we call process variablesprobably make for differences when statusvariables such as number of books, age ofbuilding, and expenditure per pupil do not.Additionally, since Jencks was looking forgross effects, one of Coleman's findingsprobably seems less important to him.Coleman reported that, for the most dis-advantaged children and for black chil-dren, quality of school does. make a differ-ence in terms of achievement. In otherwords, differences in the quality and quan-tity of schooling in the USA seem to makelittle difference in your achievement scoresunless you are poor or black. If you areboth, it seems that schooling might makea powerful difference in your scores andyour life chances.

2. Many educators believe that teach-ing and learning transactions deeply in-volve the affective (emotional) domainone's feelings, sense of happiness, satis-faction. purpose, belonging; etc. It is thesevariables that are hardest to measure andare usually omitted from these studieseither as inputs or outcomes. In fact, fromthe Coleman data, we see that a little mea-sure, crudely conducted, of sense of poweror environmental control, was more power-

Page 14: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

EDMUND W. GORDON 13

fully associated with achievement than anyother variable studied save family back-ground, Jencks did not study the affectiveand process variables, as input or outputof the schools.

3. There appears to he considerable con-founding or contaminating of data in thekind of analysis Jencks has used to arriveat the conclusion that schooling makeslittle difference. He concludes, for instance,that if "all elementary schools were equallyeffective, cognitive inequality among sixthgraders would decline less than 3 percent."Now the data upon which this estimate isarrived at are the same data that reflect theproblems referred to earlier. In addition,Jencks uses the term "equally effective."It would he interesting to know what di-rection his argument would take if weused my term, maximally effective. School-ing as a part of the process by which wefacilitate development in our children mustthough it never hasdefine its goals interms of maximal effectiveness. This in-volves us in the process of predicting notwhat will happen if the child and theschool continue to function at their presentlevels, but what happens if we put the twoin orbit and free them from the restraintsthat probably are limiting both.

We must remember that Jencks was notconcerned with what schooling can do todevelop people, he was particularly con-cerned with what schooling can do to in-crease and equalize economic status. Theseare related but quite different processes.It is to the process of human developmentand learning that I have devoted my pro-fessional career. An examination of someof the factors that may complicate thoseprocesses in low-income and minoritygroups may help us to put into proper per-spective the conflicting opinions we hearconcerning the influence of schooling.

Foralmost 25 years, hanging near my

desk has been a print of a beautifulThomas Hart Benton drawing, which heaptly titled, "Instruction." This sensitivedrawing shows an old black man, with histattered books, papers, clothing, and sur-roundings, working at the task of helpinga young black child to learn. It symbolizesan endeavor to which a host of persons,

before and after this simple soul, have de-voted their effortssome enthusiasticallyand with skill, others reluctantly andincompetence. Would that the problems ofteaching and learning were as simple asthe spirit Benton captures in this drawing.Too many black children fail to master thetraditional learning tasks of schooling. Toomany Puerto Rican, Chicano, and NativeAmerican (American Indian) children arefailed in our schools. Children from mi-nority groups and low income families areoverrepresented among our schools' fail-ures. Why?

The problems involved in the equaliza-tion of educational achievement patternsacross economic and ethnic groups continueto defy solution. The attempts at describ-ing, evaluating, and inter,ireting these prob-lems and the efforts directed at their solu-tion arc frequently confusing. Over the pastseveral years a variety of special programshave been developed to improve the edu-cational achievement of disadvantagedchildren. These programs have spanned arange from preschool through college; theirspecial emphases have included specialguidance services to experimental curri-culums; they have grown from a fewspecial efforts in the great cities to na-tion-wide, federally sponsored programssupported by the Office of Economic Op-portunity and the Office of. Education un-der the Elementary and Secondary Educa-tion Act. Thousands of special programshave been spawned. Ten billion and moredollars have been spent over the past sev-eral years. Yet despite all of this activity,there is little evidence to suggest that wehave come close to solving the problemsof educating large numbers of ethnic mi-nority group and poor white children.

The relative lack of success of these ef-forts at upgrading academic achievementin the target populations has resulted insome criticizing of the educational servicesprovided, but has also resulted in a re-newal of old arguments in support of theexploration of differences in the level ofintellectual function across ethnic groupsbased on alleged inferior genetic traits inlower status groups. Neither of the sim-plistic approaches to understanding theproblems or fixing the blame for our failure

Page 15: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

14 SPECIAL REVIEW

to make school achievement independentof ethnic or social class is adequate.

The problems of educating black andother disadvantaged populations who havebeen accidentally or deliberately, hut al-ways, systematically deprived of the op-portunity for optimal development is farmore complex. The problem of equalizingeducational achievement across groups withdifferential economic, political, and socialstatus may confront us with contradictionsthat defy resolution. Adequate understand-ing and appropriate planning for an attackupon these problems will require thatattention be directed to several issues.Among these arc: I ) the problems relatedto differential patterns of intellectual andsocial function, as well as varying degreesof readiness in multivariant populationsserved by schools whose programs are toonarrowly conceived and too inflexible toprovide the variety of conditions for learn-ing dictated by the characteristics of thechildren served; 2) the problems relatedto the conditions of children's bodies andthe conditions of their lives that mayrender them incapable of optimal develop-ment and that may seriously interfere withadequate function; 3) the problems relatedto ethnic, cultural and political incongru-encies between the schools and their staffson the one hand, and the children andcommunities served on the other; and 4)the problems related to the public schoolsas social institutions that have never beenrequired to assume responsibility for theirfailures and thus become accountable tothe society and its specific members whomthey serve.

DIFFERENTIAL CHARACTERISTICSAND DIFFERENTIAL TREATMENTS

Despite the long history in education ofconcern with meeting the special needs ofindividual children and the highly respectedstatus of differential psychology as a fieldof study, schools have made little progressin achieving a match between the develop-mental patterns, learning styles, and tem-peramental traits of learners and the edu-cational experiences to which they are ex-posed. A great deal of attention has been

given to differences in level of intellectualfunction. This is reflected in the heavy em-phasis on intelligence testing and the place-ment, even "tracking" of pupils based onthese tests. This tradition has emphasizedquantitative measurement, classification,and prediction to the neglect of qualitativemeasurement, description, and prescription.These latter processes are clearly essentialto the effective teaching of children whocome to the schools with characteristicsdifferent from those of their teachers andthe children with whom most teachers areaccustomed, Our research data indicatewide variations in patterns of intellectualand social function across and within sub-populations. These variations in functionwithin privileged populations may be lessimportant because of a variety of environ-mental factors that support adequate de-velopment and learning, Among disad-vantaged populations, where traditionalforms of environmental support may beabsent, attention to differential learningpatterns may be crucial to adequate de-velopment.

Some workers in the field have givenconsiderable attention to differential pat-terns of language structure and usage. Forexample, importance has been attached to"black English" or the dialects of blackpeoples as possibly contributing to lowacademic achievement. These indigenouslanguage forms are viewed by some asobstacles to he overcome. Others viewthem as behavioral phenomena to beutilized in learning. Workers holding theformer position stress the teaching of"standard English" or English as a secondlanguage. Those holding the latter viewemphasize the adaptation of learning ex-periences and materials to the indigenouslanguage of the child. The debate is prob-ably not important except as it may reflectrespect or lack of respect for the languagebehavior of the learner. What may bemore important than the fact of languagedifference is the role that language be-havior plays in the learning behavior ofthe specific child. To understand and utilizethat relationship in the education of thechild requires more than teaching him howto translate "black English" into standard

Page 16: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

EDMUND W. GORDON

English and requires more than makinghim a more proficient utilizer of the indig-enous language.

Understanding the role of one set of be-haviors as facilitators of more comprehen-sive behaviors is at the heart of differentialanalysis of learner characteristics and dif-ferential design of learning experiences.Schooling for black children, indeed for allchildren in our schools, comes nowherenear to meeting these implied criteria. As-sessment technology has not seriously en-gaged the problem. Curriculum specialistsare just beginning to, in some of the workin individually prescribed learning.

LIFE CONDITIONS: HEALTH,NUTRITION, AND LEARNING

Contemporary research provides evi-dence of a variety of behaviors and condi-tions that are encountered in children fromeconomically disadvantaged backgroundswith sufficient frequency to justify theconclusion that they are either induced byor nurtured by conditions of poverty. Theexcellent studies by Knobloch and Pasa-manick IS of the relationships betweenhealth status and school adjustment in low-income Negro children in Baltimore, byLashof of health status and services inChicago's South Side, and by Birch 1 ofthe health status of children from indigentfamilies in the Caribbean area, providemounting evidence in support of the hy-pothesis that there exists a continuum ofreproductive errors and developmental de-fects significantly influenced by level of in-come. According to this hypothesis, theincidence of reproductive error or develop-mental defect occurs along a continuum inwhich the incidence of error or defect isgreatest in the population for which medi-cal, nutritional, and child care are poorestand the incidence least where such care isbest.

These studies point clearly to the factsthat: I) nutritional resources for themother-to-be, the pregnant mother andfetus, and the child she bears are inade-quate; 2) medical careprenatal, obstetri-dal, and postnatalis generally poor; 3)the incidence of subtle to more severe

IS

neurologic defects is relatively high in low-income children; 4) case finding, lackingsystematic procedures, is hit or miss, leav-ing the child not only handicapped by thedisorder but frequently with no officialawareness that the condition exists; and5) family resources and sophistication areinsufficient to provide the remedial or com-pensatory supports that can spell the dif-ference between handicap and competentfunction.

These health-related conditions arethought to have important implications forschool and general social adjustment. Weknow that impaired health or organic dys-function influences school attendance,learning efficiency, developmental rate,personality development, etc. Pasaman-ick 17 attributes a substantial portion ofthe behavior disorders noted in this popu-lation to the high incidence of subtle neu-rologic disorders. Several authors relate avariety of specific learning disabilities tomild to severe neurologic abnormalities inchildren. Clearly, adequacy of health statusand adequacy of health care in our societyare influenced by adequacy of income,leading to the obvious conclusion thatpoverty results in a number of conditionsdirectly referrable to health and indirectlyto development in general, including edu-cational development.

CULTURAL, ETHNIC,AND POLITICAL INCONGRUENCIES

Ethnic and economic integration in edu-cation appeared for a brief while to be apossible solution to underachievement inlower-status children. The data seem to in-dicate that academic achievement for blackchildren improves when they are educatedin middle-class and predominantly whiteschools. It is not at all clear that ethnicmix makes the difference. However, theevidence overwhelmingly supports an as-sociation between separation by economicgroup and school achievement with loweconomic status being associated with lowschool achievement. Consistently, poorchildren attending school in poor neigh-borhoods tend to show low level schoolachievement.

Page 17: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

16 SPECIAL REVIEW

Before-and-after studies of desegregatedschools have also tended to show thatachievement levels rise with desegrega-tion, although the exact interplay of re-actions leading to this result has not yetbeen conclusively defined. For example, theprocess of desegregation may, by improv-ing teacher morale or bringing about otherchanged conditions, result in an overallincrease in the quality of educationthroughout the system. There have been anumber of studies examining the possiblerelationship of integration (along racial orstatus group lines) and achievement, andthe overall results of these efforts appearto demonstrate that children from lower-status groups attending schools where pu-pils from higher-status families are in themajority attain improved achievementlevel, with no significant lowering ofachievement for the higher-status group.However when children from higher-statusgroups are in the minority in the school,there tends not to be an improvement inthe achievement of the lower-status group.

Although these findings are generallysupported in mass data compiled fromlarge-scale populations, studies of minoritygroup performance under experimentalconditions of ethnic mix suggest a needfor caution in making similar observationsfor smaller populations and individualcases. From these findings it becomes clearthat the impact of assigned status and per-ceived conditions of comparison (that isthe subjects' awareness of the norms againstwhich their data will be evaluated) resultsin a quite varied pattern of performanceon the part of the lower status group sub-

jects. Thus, it may be dangerous to gen-eralize that across-the-board economicethnic and social class integration willautomatically result in positive improve-ment for the lower-status group.

To further complicate the picture, a newrenaissance in cultural nationalism amongall disadvantaged ethnic minorities has

brought into question our assumptions con-cerning ethnic integration and education.In a society that has alternately pushedethnic separation or ethnic amalgamationand that has never truly accepted culturaland ethnic pluralism as its model, blacks,Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and Native Amer-

icans are insisting that the traditional pub-lic school is guilty not only of intellectualand social but of cultural genocide of theirchildren. For many members of thesegroups the problem in education for blacksis that they have been subjected to whiteeducation, which they see as destructive toblack people. When one views this argu-ment in the context of the current stage inthe development of craft unionism in edu-cation, the position cannot be ignored. Theconditions and status of professional work-ers in education are justly the concern oftheir unions but blacks increasingly viewthe union concern as being in conflict withtheir concern for their children's develop-ment. That in New York City the work-ers are predominantly white makes it easyfor the conflict to be viewed as ethnic inorigin unless one looks at the situation inWashington, D.C., where Negroes areheavily represented in the educational staff,but some of the problems between profes-sionals and clients are no less present.

There are class and caste conflicts towhich insufficient attention has been givenin the organization and delivery of educa-tional services. If cultural and ethnic iden-tification are important components of thelearning experience, to ignore or demeanthem is poor education. If curriculum anddelivery systems do not take these factorsinto account, inefficient learning may bethe result. One would hope that black edu-cation by black educators is not the onlysolution, yet we are being pressed to nolonger ignore it as a possible solution.

Would that the problems ended eventhere. It may well be that what has sur-faced as cultural nationalism may be onlythe wave crest of a more important issue.Public schools as social institutions havenever been required to assume responsi-bility for their failures. They, nonetheless,eagerly accept credit for the successes oftheir students. This may be related in partto the functions that schools serve inmodern societies. The noted anthropologist,Anthony Wallace, 22 has discussed the dif-ferential attention given to training in tech-nique or skills education for morality, andthe development of intellect in societiesthat are revolutionary, conservative, or re-actionary. For more than one hundred

Page 18: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

EDMUND W. GORDON 17

years the United States has been a con-servative societyliberal in its traditionsbut essentially conservative in its functions,Some of us fear that that conservatism hasgiven way to a reactionary stance. Accord-ing to Wallace, the conservative societyplaces highest emphasis on training intechniques and skills, with secondary at-tention to morality (correct behavior), andleast attention to the development of theintellect. Societies in the reactionary phaseplace greatest emphasis on morality (nowdefined as law and order), second em-phasis on techniques and skills, and onlyslight or no attention to the developmentof intellect. He sees society in its revolu-tionary phase as placing greatest emphasison morality (humanistic concerns), withsecond-level interest on the development ofintellect, and the least attention given totraining in technique. Schools may nothave developed a tradition of accounta-bility because techniques and skills may bethe least difficult of the learning tasks tomaster, if the conditions for learning areright. For large numbers of children whohave progressed in the mastery of tech-nique, their status in the society has fa-cilitated technique mastery. Those whohave not mastered the skills, our societyhas been able to absorb into low-skill workand non-demanding life situations. But bythe mid 20th Century, entry into the laborforce and participation in the affairs of thesociety increasingly require skills and tech-niques mastery. Those who would movetoward meaningful participation and theassertion of power are increasingly de-manding that the schools be accountablenot only for pupils' mastery of skills, butalso for the nurturance of morality and thedevelopment of intellectuality. In fact,with the rapidly increasing demand foradaptability and trainability in those whoare to advance in the labor force, Du-Bois's 5 concern with the liberating arts andsciences (the development of intellect)moves to the fore. Yet we must rememberthat the schools are at present instrumentsof a conservative (possibly reactionary) so-ciety, but blacks, other minority groups,and poor people increasingly see revolu-tion (radical change) as the only ultimatesolution to the problems and conditions in

which their lives are maintained. As such,their concern with schooling may moresharply focus on issues related to moralityand intellectual development, broadly de-finedconcerns that the schools havenever been competent to meet. If circum-stance has converted these concerns toeducational needs, the schools then, intheir present form, are ill prepared to edu-cate these young people whose ideals andgoals should be revolutionary, not con-servative, and certainly not reactionary.

But this does not mean that schoolingcannot be effective in the development ofyoung people. To insure that our schoolseffectively educate is one of our tasks. Toreduce or eliminate economic inequalityis a related but separate task. It is from theaccidental or deliberate confusing of thesetasks, along with the distortion of themeaning of possible genetically based dif-ferences in the intellectual functioning ofethnic groups, that the threat to adequatesupport for educational and other humanwelfare programs is perceived. Jencks iscorrect, we do not equalize income by mak-ing schooling equally available or equallyeffective for all people. We equalize in-come, if that is our goal, by redistributingincome and by eliminating the opportunityto exploit the wealth producing labor ofothers and to hoard capital. But that doesnot mean that there are not good reasonsfor a democratic and humane society tomake schooling equally available and op-timally effective for all people. Similarly,Jensen is correct. People do differ individ-ually and by groups (races, if you will).It is quite likely that his assertion thatgroups of people differ with respect toqualitative aspects of intellectual functionwill find further support. Even before Jen-sen's work gained prominence, Lesser,"Zigler,21 and others were reporting dataand advancing postulates indicating ethnicgroup and social class differences in thecharacter of intellectual function. Thatgenetic, factors influence mental functionand in part account for individual andgroup differences does not mean thatschooling and other environmental condi-tions have no effect, nor does it mean thatthese differences are not useful. Rather,the fact of difference, no matter what the

Page 19: An Affluent Society's Excuses for Inequality: Developmental ...

18 SPECIAL REVIEW

source, in the interest of human develop-ment requires diversity of facilitative treat-ments and sufficiency of the resources todeliver them.

REFERENCES1. BIRCH, n. 1966. Research needs and oppor-

tunities in Latin America for studyingdeprivation in psychobiological develop-ment. In Deprivation in PsychobiologicalDevelopment. Pan American Health Or-ganization (W110), Scientific PublicationNo. 134, Washington, D.C.

2. BIRCH, H, 1968, Boldness of judgment inbehavioral genetics. In Science and theConcept of Race, M. Mead et al.. eds.Columbia University Press, New York.

3. COLEMAN, J. ET Al 1966. Equality of Edu-cational Opportunity. U.S. Office of Edu-cation, Washington, D.C.

4. *DonzirotsicY, T. 1973. Genetic Diversityand Human Equality. Basic Books, NewYork.

5. DU sots, w. 1968. The Autobiography ofW. E. B. Du Bois (1st ed.) InternationalPublishers, New York.

6. *EYSENCK, H. 1971. Race, Intelligence, andEducation. Temple Smith, London.

7. FRIED, M. 1968. The need to end thepseudoscientific investigation of race. InScience and the Concept of Race, M. Meadet al., eds. Columbia University Press,New York.

8. GOLDSTEIN, A. 1969. A flaw in Jensen's useof heritability data. ERIC/IRCD Bull.5(4) :5-7, 14.

9. *HERRNSTEIN, R. 1971. I.Q. The Atlantic.Sept: 43-58, 63-64.

10. IIIRSCII, J. 1968. Behavior-genetic analysisand the study of man. In Science and theConcept of Race, M. Mead et al.. eds.Columbia University Press, New York.

11. *JENCKS, C. ET AL. 1972. Inequality: aReassessment of the Effect of Family and

Schooling in America. Basic Books, NewYork.

12, *JENSEN, A. 1972. Genetics and Education.Harper and Row, New York.

13, *JtiNsiiisr, A. 1973. Educability and GroupDifferences. Harper and Row, New York.

14, KNOBLOCH, II. AND PASAMANICK, B. 1959.Distribution of intellectual potential in aninfant population. In Epidemiology ofMental Disorder, B. Pasamanick, ed.American Association for the Advance-ment of Science, Washington, D.C.

15. LAsnoF, J. 1965. Unpublished report to theDepartment of Public Health, City ofChicago.

16. LESSER, G. AND STODOLSKY, S. 1967. Learn-ing patterns in the disadvantaged. Paperprepared for the Information RetrievalCenter on the Disadvantaged, TeachersCollege, Columbia University, New York.(Apr.)

17. PASAMANICK, B. 1956. The epidemiology ofbehavior disorders in childhood. Neurologyand Psychiatry in Childhood. Res. Publ.Ass. Nerv. Ment. Dis. Williams and Wil-kins, Baltimore.

18. PASAMANICK, B. AND KNOBLOCH, H. 1958.The contribution of some organic factorsto school retardation in Negro children.J. Negro Educ. 27:4-9.

19. strocra_EY, w. 1972. Phi Delta Kappan.Jan. (special supplement) :297-307.

20. SHUEY, A. 1966. The Testing of Negro In-telligence (2nd ed.) Social Science Press,New York.

21. ZIGLER, E. 1966. Mental retardation: cur-rent issues and approaches. In Review ofChild Development Research, vol. 2, Hoff-man and Hoffman, eds. Russell SageFoundation, New York.

22. WALLACE, A. 1968. Schools in revolutionaryand conservative societies. In Social andCultural Foundations of Guidance. Holt,Rinehart and Winston, New York.

* These publications were reviewed within this work.

For reprints: Dr. Edmund W. Gordon, Department of Applied Human Development & Guidance,Box 75, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, N.Y. 10027


Recommended