The Mismeasure of Minds

The 1954 <i>Brown v. Board of Education</i> decision required desegregation of America’s schools but it also set in motion an agonizing multidecade debate over race class and IQ. In this innovative book Michael E. Staub investigates neuropsychological studies published between <i>Brown</i> and the controversial 1994 book <i>The Bell Curve</i>. In doing so he illuminates how we came to view race and intelligence today.<br/><br/>In tracing how research and experiments around such concepts as learned helplessness deferred gratification hyperactivity and emotional intelligence migrated into popular culture and government policy Staub reveals long-standing and widespread dissatisfaction—not least among middle-class whites—with the metric of IQ. He also documents the devastating consequences—above all for disadvantaged children of color—as efforts to undo discrimination and create enriched learning environments were recurrently repudiated and defunded. By connecting psychology race and public policy in a single narrative Staub charts the paradoxes that have emerged and that continue to structure investigations of racism even into the era of contemporary neuroscientific research.