Educability-and-Group-Differences-1973-by-Arthur-Robert-Jensen

282 Educability and Group Differences
(IQ 130) suburban children, and although inner-city black
first-graders of average IQ lag behind inner city white firstgraders
they give more paradigmatic (i.e., mature) responses
than white suburban first-graders of average IQ. Thus, at first
grade the white child is slightly ahead of the black child when
both are reared in the inner city, but the black slum child
exceeds the white suburban child. The superiority is shortlived,
however, for by third grade, suburban children - whether
blue collar or upper-middle-class - have surpassed the inner
city children, whether black or white . . . the temporary advance
in linguistic development, and the subsequent decline, appears
to be typical of the child in a poverty environment. (Entwisle,
1970)
It may seem surprising that the rate of language development
should so markedly decelerate in slum children between the first
and third grades in school, where reading and cognitive enrichment
are presumably being fostered. The nature of the changes from
linguistic precocity to linguistic retardation in these children is
interesting. Entwisle observes:
The relative developmental position of blacks and whites does
shift with advancing age, however, and both inner-city blacks
and whites show a slowed pace of development compared to
suburban children by third grade. Again, however, the rate
alone tells only a small part of the story, for while the semantic
systems of white inner-city children overlap considerably the
semantic systems of white suburban children, semantic systems
of black children depart significantly from both white groups,
especially for more complex words.
The main difference, pointed out in several examples mentioned
by Entwisle, is that by fifth grade Negro children’s responses in
the word association procedure are more restricted to a very
specific context, as contrasted with responses reflecting broader
meaning, greater generality, conceptual categorizing, supraordination,
and the like.
To explain these findings, Entwisle mentions such factors as
the greater restriction of television viewing imposed on suburban
preschoolers, lack of sufficient reinforcement for learning after
school entry afforded to slum children, and a ‘lack of environmental