what hypothesis has been advanced by most psychologist to account for racial differences in IQ?

Answer 1

The first line of hypotheses is probably that non-whites tend to be of lower socioeconomic status, underprivileged and thus without adequate opportunities to have learning adequately fostered in their children.

This doesn't hold up against studies showing a remaining testing gap when the SES variable is controlled.

Then the hypothesis becomes about testing bias itself. The idea is that most IQ tests are created for people of dominant privileged white culture and do not account for the types of differences you would see growing up in a multicultural neighborhood, the ghetto, the deep south, or in a multiracial family, for example.

Look up the works of the following dudes (and dudette):

Arthur Jensen - Berkeley
Richard Herrnstein - Harvard
Thomas Bouchard - Minnesota
William Shockley - Stanford
Philippe Rushton - Western Ontario
Linda Gottfredson - Delaware

These guys have TONS to say about the topic.

Answer 2

IQ tests are biased... i.e., racially and socioeconomically. That is, for African-Americans, an IQ test may not make sense if they are not middle-class, because if they live in inner-city neighborhoods, they are exposed to a very different type of language, and their intelligence is not measured fairly because there is not measure of "street smarts", only "book smarts", which may not be as important to survival in these neighborhoods. As well, lower income children often do not have the access to quality education that middle class children do, and this is a shameful situation America finds itself in, truly. That is, white, middle-class children will "pass" an IQ test more easily because they've had exposure to the items the test is made up of.

In other words... IQ tests are written with the "white, middle- and upper-class ideation of what it means to be 'smart'".

Answer 3

Genetics is a big one. The problem with genetics is IQ test raise and lower among ethnic groups over periods of time. IE: Chinese scored lower than whites as late as the seventies (I believe) and now score much higher. Why do they outscore their parents if it is inherent?

Cultural bias also has its problems. IE: Blacks of direct African descent test equally with white Americans. If it were culturally biased how are they able to test through the biases? They should have an even more difficult time.

Socio economic factors do not tell the whole story because of adoption. Children who are adopted as babies will score very differently from their parents even though they were raised in the same socio economic class.

The jury is still out on this one.

Answer 4

u know i did a research paper on this a couple months ago, and statistics showed that african-americans performed better in relation to whites, a lil while ago after the civil war, sometime around there, i can't really recall the details and i am pretty sure there is a hypothesis for this, i just can't member, sorry :)

Answer 5

That the IQ tests are culturally biased.