Jensen, Arthur 1923-

JENSEN, ARTHUR 1923-

Professor, university of california, berkeley

National Furor Over Black IQ Attainment

No other scientist researching learning gathered the national headlines or created such controversy as Arthur Jensen. His article setting forth his theory and research on the feasibility of boosting deprived children's intelligence quotients (IQs) appeared in the Harvard Educational Review, a publication that has a limited readership. However, the popular press translated his 123-page article into flat statements of only a few sentences, claiming that Jensen's conclusions were that blacks were intellectually inferior to whites according to IQ tests.

Why Jensen Was Investigating Genetic Factors

Jensen initiated his study to document whether or not the compensatory programs that the federal government was supporting with millions of dollars were capable of making significant inroads in narrowing the gap between minority and majority pupils. Essentially, Jensen argued that in his research he found that genetic factors were much more important in determining IQ than environnmental factors. He attributed the majority of the genetic factors to prenatal influences primarily associated with the nourishment of the mother and the child. And these genetic factors, he believed, contributed to different, but not necessarily inferior, learning patterns in some black children.

Associative Versus Conceptual Learning

Jensen defined two different types of learning: associative (related to imaginative and intuitive thinking) and conceptual (related to logic and the ability to grasp abstract concepts). However, it is only the conceptual type of learning that is measured by IQ tests, he explained. Because our education system puts a greater emphasis on this conceptual learning rather than associative learning, those whose learning patterns are different are always going to be at a disadvantage. According to Jensen, "Too often, if a child does not learn the school subject when taught in a way that largely depends on this conceptual framework, he often does not learn at all, so we find high school students who have failed to master basic skills that they could easily have learned many years earlier by means not totally dependent on conceptual learning." The conclusion that Jensen came to was that our educational systems should foster "diversity rather than uniformity" and spend funds attempting to "tap into other ways of learning," rather than trying to force all learners to respond in the same way.

Distortions and Responses

Immediately after Jensen's article was published, response was swift in the academic community and the general public. The next issue of Harvard Educational Review was, in a break from the usual format, devoted only to counterarguments. Although nearly everyone disagreed with Jensen's contention that conceptual intelligence is hereditary, there was support for his conclusions and his reasoning. Jerome Kagan, professor at Harvard, applauded the attention the article brought to problems deriving from prenatal mal-nutrition; J. McV. Hunt agreed that indeed children must be provided rich postnatal experiences to develop inherent intellectual structures; and James Crow supported Jensen's contentions that "the reality of individual differences need not and should not mean rewards for some, frustration for others." Although the general public never had the chance to comprehend all of Jensen's arguments, the out-of-context conclusions about so-called inferiority of blacks provided ammunition for political arguments against spending for compensatory educational programs.

Source:

Arthur Jensen, "How Much Can We Boost IQ and Scholastic Achievement?" Harvard Educational Review, 39 (Winter 1969): 1-123.