Creativity, intelligence, and culture

connections and possibilities

James C. Kaufman

pp. 155-168

in: Peter Meusburger, Joachim Funke, Edgar Wunder (eds), Milieus of creativity, Berlin, Springer, 2009

Abstract

The topic of intelligence and culture is a widely studied and often highly controversial area, marked by much debate and emotion. Typically, African Americans and Hispanic Americans score lower than European Americans on a variety of measures of intelligence and ability (see Loehlin, 2000, for an overview). Group tests such as the SAT, ACT, Graduate Records Examinations, and Advanced Placement exams produce similar results (Camara & Schmidt, 1999; Morgan & Maneckshana, 1996). Some researchers argue that these measures reflect actual differences (e.g., Herrnstein & Murray, 1994; Jensen, 1998). Others point to the discrepancy between socioeconomic status and opportunities across ethnicities (Rogers, 1996; Sternberg, 1996), whereas still others argue that current ability measures do not incorporate enough aspects of intelligence (Sternberg et al., 2008).Indeed, the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children—Second Edition (KABC-II; Kaufman & Kaufman, 2004) is based on two current theories of intelligence (the Cattell—Horn—Carroll (CHC) theory of intelligence (McGrew, 2005) and Luria's (1970) neuropsychological model). The KABC-II, as well as its predecessor (the K-ABC; Kaufman & Kaufman, 1983), has consistently shown the smallest differences in test scores by ethniCity of the major individual intelligence tests (Cole et al., 2009; Kaufman, 2003; Kaufman et al., 2005). Another instrument based on Luria's theory, the Cognitive Assessment System (Naglieri & Das, 1997), also shows small differences by ethniCity (Naglieri et al., 2005).