Intellectual Structure of Southern Negro Children

Abstract

In the 1950's the WISC was given by the same examiner to a selected sample of 84 Negro children in each of five Southern states. Ages which ranged from 5 yr., 7 mo., to 12 yr., 6 mo., and sexes were equally distributed within each state. Analysis of the data showed that the Verbal IQ was significantly higher ( p = .01) than the Performance IQ for both sexes, all ages, and all but one location. There were few sex differences. Except for its influence on the factor structure of the 12 verbal and performance tests, age was not an interesting classification of the data. In all, geographical groups differed much more in WISC performance than did age or sex groups. This is consistent with strong regional differences in Negro intellectual performance apparent from a review of previous studies.