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Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing


Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing

Paperback by Zenderland, Leila (California State University, Fullerton)

Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing

£41.99

ISBN:
9780521003636
Publication Date:
23 Apr 2001
Language:
English
Publisher:
Cambridge University Press
Pages:
478 pages
Format:
Paperback
For delivery:
Estimated despatch 14 - 19 May 2024
Measuring Minds: Henry Herbert Goddard and the Origins of American Intelligence Testing

Description

This book explores the origins of the American intelligence testing movement. It follows the life and work of Henry Herbert Goddard, America's first intelligence tester and author of the most popular American eugenics tract, The Kallikak Family. The book traces the controversies surrounding Goddard's efforts to bring Alfred Binet's tests of intelligence from France to America and to introduce them into the basic institutions of American life - from hospitals to classrooms to courtrooms. It shows how testers used their findings to address the most pressing social and political questions of their day, including poverty, crime, prostitution, alcoholism, immigration restriction, and military preparedness. It also explores the broader legacies of the testing movement by showing how Goddard's ideas helped to reshape the very meaning of mental retardation, special education, clinical psychology, and the 'normal' mind in ways that would be felt for the rest of the century.

Contents

Introduction: motives, meanings, and contexts; 1. Spirit and science: faith, healing, and mission; 2. 'A little child shall lead them': educational evangelism and child study; 3. 'Psychological work among the feeble-minded': the medical meaning of 'mental deficiency'; 4. Psychological work in the schools: the statistical meaning of 'subnormality'; 5. Causes and consequences: the Kallikak family as eugenic parable; 6. The biology and sociology of 'prevention': defectives, dependents, and delinquents; 7. Psychological work and the state: reformers, professionals, and the public; 8. Psychological work and the nation: the political meaning of intelligence; 9. Leaving Vineland: popularity, notoriety, and a place in history; Epilogue: psychological legacies, historical lessons, and luck.

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