Question

The Maori are a socioeconomically disadvantaged group in New Zealand, a country colonized by the British long ago. Maori children typically score lower on IQ tests than children of British background. Knowing what you know about minorities in the United States, what are your top two hypotheses about why Maori children perform relatively poorly, and how might you test these hypotheses?

Answer 1

It is likely that Maori students perform poorly on IQ tests in comparison to children of British background because these tests may have been developed in Western cultures and therefore the questions might be culturally biased. Another reason maybe that the way intelligence is conceptualised and exhibited may differ across cultures. For instance, IQ tests typically measure linguistic and numerical type intelligence which may not be heavily emphasised in Maori cultures. The best way to test these two hypothesis would be to develop an IQ test by the Maori population and have it administered to both the cultures.