4 ms·

> I had to pass essentially an IQ test to get placed into those classes. IQ tests are notoriously and historically pretty racist. They can be useful in certai

> I had to pass essentially an IQ test to get placed into those classes. IQ tests are notoriously and historically pretty racist. They can be useful in certain contexts but they aren't very good as an academic gatekeeper or a measure of individual intelligence.

victor9000 4y ago
Ok, I'll bite, how are IQ tests racist?
- anthonypasq 4y ago
  you could theoretically have questions that rely on cultural background info to understand it. i imagine there are questions that a chinese student would understand and an american would not, but IQ tests and most other standardized test are rigorously tested to avoid this stuff. they look for this and throw out offending questions on the SAT all the time
- com2kid 4y ago
  Let's take a math story problem. Give an upper class white kid a problem involving tennis scores, no problem. The kid will be able to easily understand what is being talked about, there isn't anything mentally jarring going on. Give a poor black kid a problem involving tennis scores, boom, problem. Odds of a poor black kid knowing how tennis scoring works, much less likely. My, largely well to do, neighborhood has tennis courts. The more diverse, and poorer, neighborhood I grew up in, didn't. I am still not sure how tennis is scored, but I am pretty sure the kids in the house next to me understand it. Repeat this idea a few times with some of the other tests. Give some word recall lists using words poor/minority kids aren't accustom to. It is harder to recall words that you have never heard before, they are basically nonsense syllables, which is a very different test. If you had thrown "quiche" in the middle of a word list 8 year old me would have had no idea what you were talking about. Modern day IQ tests have tried to correct for these biases, but school administrators can choose an "older" test to purposefully get biased results.
  - tester756 4y ago
    >Give a poor black kid a problem involving tennis scores, boom, problem. Odds of a poor black kid knowing how tennis scoring works, much less likely. Over around 18 years of having various maths topics in schools The only thing that required some "non-math" knowledge were cards related questions and maybe dice but what is that tennis counting example? do they actually appear on IQ questions? how about maths exams?
    - com2kid 4y ago
      I've seen plenty of problems involving scoring in various sports. I've seen stats taught using baseball batting averages and tons of problems involving football scoring. Oh and poker hands. I can easily imagine an IQ test 50 years ago involving scoring in bridge games.
  - chongli 4y ago
    school administrators can choose an "older" test to purposefully get biased results Do you have any evidence of school administrators choosing "older" tests with biased questions about tennis scores or whatever other cultural trivia rich white kids are most likely to know about? I took an IQ test when I was a kid (early 90's) and it was a bunch of abstract questions involving mental rotations of objects, determining the next number in a sequence, determining the missing object from a set of objects, and so on. There were no questions about vocabulary or trivia of any kind.
    - com2kid 4y ago
      You can look at the history of IQ tests to see that older ones were indeed biased. New tests are designed to counteract those biases. The point is that it is possible for corrupt administrators to bias test results, and the methods to do such are fairly easy to come across. I'm not objecting to IQ tests, just pointing out that if a school wanted to create a test that only admitted certain students, that it is very possible to do such.
      - 4y ago

victor9000 4y ago

Ok, I'll bite, how are IQ tests racist?

anthonypasq 4y ago
you could theoretically have questions that rely on cultural background info to understand it. i imagine there are questions that a chinese student would understand and an american would not, but IQ tests and most other standardized test are rigorously tested to avoid this stuff. they look for this and throw out offending questions on the SAT all the time
com2kid 4y ago
Let's take a math story problem. Give an upper class white kid a problem involving tennis scores, no problem. The kid will be able to easily understand what is being talked about, there isn't anything mentally jarring going on. Give a poor black kid a problem involving tennis scores, boom, problem. Odds of a poor black kid knowing how tennis scoring works, much less likely. My, largely well to do, neighborhood has tennis courts. The more diverse, and poorer, neighborhood I grew up in, didn't. I am still not sure how tennis is scored, but I am pretty sure the kids in the house next to me understand it. Repeat this idea a few times with some of the other tests. Give some word recall lists using words poor/minority kids aren't accustom to. It is harder to recall words that you have never heard before, they are basically nonsense syllables, which is a very different test. If you had thrown "quiche" in the middle of a word list 8 year old me would have had no idea what you were talking about. Modern day IQ tests have tried to correct for these biases, but school administrators can choose an "older" test to purposefully get biased results.
- tester756 4y ago
  >Give a poor black kid a problem involving tennis scores, boom, problem. Odds of a poor black kid knowing how tennis scoring works, much less likely. Over around 18 years of having various maths topics in schools The only thing that required some "non-math" knowledge were cards related questions and maybe dice but what is that tennis counting example? do they actually appear on IQ questions? how about maths exams?
  - com2kid 4y ago
    I've seen plenty of problems involving scoring in various sports. I've seen stats taught using baseball batting averages and tons of problems involving football scoring. Oh and poker hands. I can easily imagine an IQ test 50 years ago involving scoring in bridge games.
- chongli 4y ago
  school administrators can choose an "older" test to purposefully get biased results Do you have any evidence of school administrators choosing "older" tests with biased questions about tennis scores or whatever other cultural trivia rich white kids are most likely to know about? I took an IQ test when I was a kid (early 90's) and it was a bunch of abstract questions involving mental rotations of objects, determining the next number in a sequence, determining the missing object from a set of objects, and so on. There were no questions about vocabulary or trivia of any kind.
  - com2kid 4y ago
    You can look at the history of IQ tests to see that older ones were indeed biased. New tests are designed to counteract those biases. The point is that it is possible for corrupt administrators to bias test results, and the methods to do such are fairly easy to come across. I'm not objecting to IQ tests, just pointing out that if a school wanted to create a test that only admitted certain students, that it is very possible to do such.
    - 4y ago