Intelligence – Culture Club

Topic:

Intelligence.

materials

What do we value about intelligence? Why do we tend to overlook intellectual diversity in our equality initiatives? Valuing individuals according to intelligence is ubiquitous in our culture—think about IQ tests and standardised educational or occupational exams—but also the ways in which colloquial speech denigrates undesirable things as ‘stupid’ or ‘dumb.’ There is a long and storied history of trying to quantify the worth of individuals based on some metric of intelligence. This presents an ethical dilemma. If opportunities are linked to intelligence, and intelligence is variable across individuals, then policies that attempt to ‘level the playing field’ on the basis of ability are limited in how they can solve that inequality. Are universities mass producing inequality by educating only those with intellectual potential?

Have a look at some of these resources before the meeting:

The dark history of IQ tests – Stefan C. Dombrowski – TED-Ed, YouTube (video, 4 mins)
Intelligence podcast series: Born Smart, Born Equal, Born Different (29 mins) – Adam Rutherford, BBC Sounds. This the the third of a three podcast series. If you have time, the other two are also excellent listening: Born Smart (29 mins) and Born Equal (29 mins)
The IQ Test Wars: Why Screening for Intelligence is Still So Controversial – Daphne Martschenko, The Conversation (podcast, 15 mins, or written transcript, ~11mins).
Of Brainiacs and Billionaires – Jonathan Wai, Psychology Today (article, ~14 mins)
Why You Need to Stop Using These Words and Phrases – Rakshitha Arni Ravishankar, Ascend (article, 9 mins)
Why is it okay to discriminate on the basis of intelligence? – Question on TheStudentRoom (forum post illustrating how difficult it is for people to give intelligence the same consideration as other equity issues)

Facilitation Notes

Discussion Questions

Is discrimination on the basis of intellectual disability (a clinically determined category) something you are comfortable with?
Is discrimination on the basis of intellectual ability (educationally determined categories) something you are comfortable with?
Is offering opportunities (e.g. qualitifications, jobs etc.) on the basis of aptitude something you are comfortable with? Is this any different from the above?
Why is society tend to be uncomfortable with the concept of intelligence being heritable?
If we were to stop giving opportunities to people on the basis of their assumed intellect, what would universities look like? What would society look like?
To what extent does discrimination on the basis of assumed intellect perpetuate other biases that we find problematic?

Resource Personalisation

You may consider recent job advertisements from your organisation that showcase discrimination on the basis of assumed intellectual ability.
The forum post contains a lot of responses, some of which are offensive. You may want to find an alternative to this. If so, can you find any resources on discrimination according to different levels of intelligence?

Topic:

Intelligence.

materials

Facilitation Notes

Culture Club.