Some Observations Concerning Formal Tests in Cross-Cultural Settings

Abstract

The issues involved in cross-cultural assessment have been a strong focus in the controversies concerning racial and individual equality and inequality. Proponents in the age-old debate between the nature and nurturists have found confirmation of their views in the outcome of testing. Genetic determinists have taken the assignment of an inordinately high proportion of ethnic minority children to schools for the educationally subnormal (see Chinn, 1980, p. 50 and HMSO, 1981, p. 45) as evidence for innate racial inferiority, while environmental interactionists have linked these circumstances with the socio-economic and wider discrimination against such groups. Aside from the broader societal aspects of the debate, much argument has centred around the role of the Western notion of ‘intelligence’ and of the devising, administration and interpretation of assessment materials based on this notion, in supporting or distorting various views. It has been questioned whether or not ‘intelligence’ as a meaningful pure entity exists, and even if it does, whether it is accessible to quantification. If it is, then do the tests which purport to measure it succeed, and if not, what is it they are actually assessing? Is intelligence, as it has been cynically expressed, merely what intelligence tests measure, is it an artificial construct of value judgements related to what is considered necessary to succeed in Western society, is it so, as Anastasi and Foley (1949, quoted in Vernon, 1969, p. 89) have suggested, that ‘The “higher” mental processes of one culture may be the relatively worthless “stunts” of another’