I Ntelligence Of The Different Social Classes
Of the 1000 children, 492 were classified by their teachers according to
social class into the following five groups: _very inferior_, _inferior_,
_average_, _superior_, and _very superior_. A comparative study was then made of
the distribution of I Q's for these different groups.
The data may be summarized as follows:--
1. The median I Q for children of the superior social class is
about 7 points above, and that of the inferior social class
about 7 points below, the median I Q of the average social
group. This means that by the age of 14 inferior class children
are about one year below, and superior class children one year
above, the median mental age for all classes taken together.
2. That the children of the superior social classes make a
better showing in the tests is probably due, for the most part,
to a superiority in original endowment. This conclusion is
supported by five supplementary lines of evidence: (a) the
teachers' rankings of the children according to intelligence;
(b) the age-grade progress of the children; (c) the quality
of the school work; (d) the comparison of older and younger
children as regards the influence of social environment; and
(e) the study of individual cases of bright and dull children
in the same family.
3. In order to facilitate comparison, it is advisable to express
the intelligence of children of all social classes in terms of
the same objective scale of intelligence. This scale should be
based on the median for all classes taken together.
4. As regards their responses to individual tests, our children
of a given social class were not distinguishable from children
of the same intelligence in any other social class.