From: Rafal Smigrodzki (rms2g@virginia.edu)
Date: Wed Oct 02 2002 - 11:06:42 MDT
Damien wrote:
> Interesting. How would you account for so few black males in the 140+
> cohort compared with black females (which is what I was talking
> about)? Note that this point has little to do with B/W differences,
> and is all about Bm/Bf scores--although the *causes* of Bm resistance
> to testing might have a great deal to do with B/W issues and history
> etc.
>
> Damien Broderick
### I searched the PsycINFO database for information on this phenomenon but
I failed to find any articles specifically describing it, except for a brief
mention here: Homogenously grouped urban gifted African-American and
Caucasian secondary students: A longitudinal study.Dissertation Abstracts
International: Section B: the Sciences & Engineering. Vol 62(3-B), Sep 2001,
1621, US: Univ Microfilms International. (see full abstract below).
Unfortunately the study is not available online. I perused about 30
abstracts pertinent to gender differences, Blacks, and gifted students. All
of them used gender-balanced samples, none mentioned any significant gender
difference. I would be inclined to treat Sowell's report with caution -
after all, in the article we read he describes an observation he made but
not a full scientific study, with the needed statistical significance
analysis.
Should the gifted male/female difference be real, this would be indeed quite
difficult to explain. According to the following article:
Steele, C. M. (1997). A threat in the air: How stereotypes shape
intellectual identity and performance. American Psychologist, 52, 613-629
, there is a significant framing effect on IQ test performance in both
Blacks and females (any race), which lowers their test scores. This is taken
to be evidence of the influence of stereotypes on IQ performance, and
possibly actual IQ. If you are both female and Black, you are exposed to a
double whammy of stereotype, so one might expect there would be *fewer*
gifted Black females.
This seems to be an even more convoluted and under-researched subject than
straight group comparisons.
By the way, here is a section from the APA report on the Bell Curve,
regarding test bias against Blacks:
3. Neisser, Ulric; Boodoo, Gwyneth; Bouchard, Thomas J. Jr; Boykin, A. Wade;
Brody, Nathan; Ceci, Stephen J; Halpern, Diane F; Loehlin, John C; Perloff,
Robert; Sternberg, Robert J; Urbina, Susana. Intelligence: Knowns and
unknowns. [Journal Article] American Psychologist. Vol 51(2) Feb 1996,
77-101. American Psychological Assn, US,
Test bias.
It is often argued that the lower mean scores of African Americans reflect a
bias in the intelligence tests themselves. This argument is right in one
sense of "bias" but wrong in another. To see the first of these, consider
how the term is used in probability theory. When a coin comes up heads
consistently for any reason it is said to be "biased," regardless of any
consequences that the outcome may or may not have. In this sense the
Black/White score differential is ipso facto evidence of what may be called
"outcome bias." African Americans are subject to outcome bias not only with
respect to tests but along many dimensions of American life. They have the
short end of nearly every stick: average income, representation in
high-level occupations, health and health care, death rate, confrontations
with the legal system, and so on. With this situation in mind, some critics
regard the test score differential as just another example of a pervasive
outcome bias that characterizes our society as a whole (Jackson, 1975;
Mercer, 1984). Although there is a sense in which they are right, this
critique ignores the particular social purpose that tests are designed to
serve.
>From an educational point of view, the chief function of mental tests is as
predictors (Section 2). Intelligence tests predict school performance fairly
well, at least in American schools as they are now constituted. Similarly,
achievement tests are fairly good predictors of performance in college and
postgraduate settings. Considered in this light, the relevant question is
whether the tests have a "predictive bias" against Blacks. Such a bias would
exist if African American performance on the criterion variables (school
achievement, college GPA, etc.) were systematically higher than the same
subjects' test scores would predict. This is not the case. The actual
regression lines (which show the mean criterion performance for individuals
who got various scores on the predictor) for Blacks do not lie above those
for Whites; there is even a slight tendency in the other direction (Jensen,
1980; Reynolds & Brown, 1984). Considered as predictors of future
performance, the tests do not seem to be biased against African Americans.
Here is the abstract I mentioned above:
Rose, Elizabeth Ann, Homogenously grouped urban gifted African-American and
Caucasian secondary students: A longitudinal study. Dissertation Abstracts
International: Section B: the Sciences & Engineering. Vol 62(3-B), Sep 2001,
1621, US: Univ Microfilms International.
Abstract
The breadth of this longitudinal study provides rich information about the
risks and unique experience of being a gifted urban and minority student. It
addresses the gap in research concerning the characteristics and programming
needs of this often under-identified and underserved group. The issue of
appropriate and effective academic program format is examined for a group of
185 identified urban and minority-gifted students (110 of whom were
African-American) placed in self-contained elementary and secondary gifted
programs and followed throughout their school career. An 102 student
general-education student comparison group included 62 African-Americans.
The qualitative component includes 13 students chosen to be interviewed
according to whether they remained or left the program, their gender, race,
and household income. The relationship of graduation outcomes to length of
stay, poverty status, and placement in twelfth grade was analyzed, as well
as the relationship of selected demographic, home, social and school
variables, and pertinent stress factors, to the outcomes of remaining in the
gifted program and graduating. The school district implemented a very
comprehensive identification procedure, which is described herein,
successfully identifying gifted children in early elementary. The majority
of students were identified for the gifted program before third grade,
making the question of longitudinal effects of length of stay in a
self-contained gifted program an appropriate inquiry about this group. One
of the most important results was the high graduation rate for the
identified gifted students who remained in the gifted program. Their
graduation rate of 98.6% makes them far more likely to graduate than both
their gifted counterparts who left the program and their general-education
peers. The graduation rate was 77% for gifted students who left the program
to enroll in general education, a lower rate than the 79% graduation rate
for general-education students. Therefore, remaining in the gifted program
did increase a gifted student's chances of graduating from high school. This
suggests that urban and minority gifted students are more at risk for
academic failure within a general-education setting than within a gifted
setting. There was a focus on outcomes for those who lived in poor
neighborhoods in early elementary, compared to those who lived in middle
class neighborhoods. The gifted program did have greater holding power for
African-American students compared to Caucasians, also differences between
outcomes for African-American females and males were found. Reasons for
these results such as social and peer-group pressures were explored within
the quantitative and the qualitative components of the study. (PsycINFO
Database Record (c) 2002 APA, all rights reserved)Dissertation Abstract:
2001-95018-250.
Rafal
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