Abstract
Intelligence means many things to many people, but it is above all a Western cultural concept that has been incorporated into the language and theory of the social sciences. The continued usefulness of this term as currently conceptualized has been seriously called into question (Kamin, 1975; Lewis, 1976). Whether the debate on the existence, nature, and measurement of intelligence is conceived as a scientific, ethical, or political question (Cronbach, 1975; Samelson, 1979), it is also predominantly a debate embedded in American* cultural beliefs and social institutions. Gaining an understanding of the origins of our questions and preliminary theories is an important first step toward an understanding of intelligence. A comparative methodology becomes a necessary prerequisite to provide a perspective from which to view those questions.
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Lutz, C., Levine, R.A. (1983). Culture and Intelligence in Infancy. In: Lewis, M. (eds) Origins of Intelligence. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4899-0322-8_10
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