ERIC Number: ED224391
Record Type: RIE
Publication Date: 1977-Apr
Pages: 12
Abstractor: N/A
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: N/A
EISSN: N/A
Increasing Minority Participation in Educational Research and Development in Local Educational Agencies: Needs, Issues, Options. A Perspective. Research Focus on Black Education.
Whitney, Edward N.
The importance of developing culturally specific tests for black children is addressed, along with the overall issue of whether a criterion used to discriminate among groups is valid for the population for which it is used. In addition, a brief historical review illustrates accessibility to full participation of citizens and noncitizens of early civilizations as well as present-day performance on pencil-paper measures as a means to gain access to fuller benefits in society. An illustration of misuse of testing results was the use of Army data by C. C. Brigham (1923) to indicate the ability of immigrants from Southern and Eastern Europe. Data on recent Italian immigrants were used to indicate innate ethnic differences and there was no cross-tabulation by years of schooling or other relevant factors. A 1974 study (Robert Williams) measured the effects of test instructions written in black dialectical language and in standard English on the performance of black children during intelligence testing. Children who took the test representative of their cultural background scored significantly higher than the other group. It is suggested that a criterion will be enhanced if it is developed by the population for which the measure is designed, and that minorities engage in such research and evaluation activities. The design and use of the Pupil Evaluation Measure with prekindergarten children attending a federally funded program at Baltimore City Public Schools is also addressed. (SW)
Descriptors: Access to Education, Black Culture, Black Dialects, Culture Fair Tests, Educational History, Educational Research, Educational Testing, Elementary Secondary Education, Evaluation Criteria, Minority Groups, Racial Discrimination, Researchers, School Districts, Standard Spoken Usage, Test Validity, Testing Problems
Publication Type: Opinion Papers; Speeches/Meeting Papers
Education Level: N/A
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Inst. of Education (ED), Washington, DC.; American Educational Research Association, Washington, DC.
Authoring Institution: Applied Urban Sciences, Inc., Baltimore, MD.; Baltimore City Public Schools, MD.
Grant or Contract Numbers: N/A
Note: This paper was identified by a joint project of the Institute on Desegregation at North Carolina Central University and the ERIC Clearinghouse on Higher Education at The George Washington University. The paper was also presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association (New York, NY, April 1977).