Affirmative Action and Standardized Test Scores.
2000; Howard University; Volume: 69; Linguagem: Inglês
ISSN
2167-6437
Autores Tópico(s)Racial and Ethnic Identity Research
ResumoAfrican Americans are faced with the threat of losing affirmative action as a legal vehicle for taking race and racial context into account. In education, its removal would mean greater reliance on indices such as SAT scores. This article presents analyses which show that racial context influences the SAT's ability to predict Black students' collegiate success. First, SAT items are shown to denigrate the Black experience and demonstrate a bias toward science. Thereafter, the test's predictive validity is shown to depend on college racial environment, adjustment issues, gender, and Black identity factors. Thus, whereas the nation may do away with mandates that consider race and racial context, these forces continue to influence the performance and lives of Black students. THE CONSEQUENCES OF LOSING AFFIRMATIVE ACTION IN EDUCATION Though our society should be colorblind, colorblindness has not characterized the experience of Black people in the United States. Affirmative action is based on the recognition that in order to get beyond racism, we in this nation must first take race into account. It recognizes, for example, that African Americans have been prevented from competing fairly by a series of strategies, including the denial of access to educational opportunity, and it resolves that these barriers be removed even if vestiges of educational disadvantage remain. It is almost certain that the 106th Congress will introduce legislation to end affirmative action. If this effort should succeed, the legal vehicle for taking race, racial history, and racial oppression into account in matters of hiring, enrollment, and contracting will be lost. Particularly in terms of college admissions, race or minority status is the personal quality most often considered in addition to one's academic record (Willingham & Breland, 1982). If, given the prevailing legislative sentiment, the fact of race will no longer be a criterion in college admissions, then consideration of racial context will no longer be a criterion, either. This will mean a stricter reliance on objective indices like scores, such as those for the Scholastic Aptitude Test or SAT. The purpose of this discussion is to consider the consequences of such a situation. Personally, find the subject of testing, particularly the analysis of standardized scores, fascinating. This is not just because testing has such a shady history, which it does. Note, for example, that the center stage of recent testing controversies has been monopolized by individuals who espouse hard-core racist ideologies (Herrnstein & Murray, 1994). Nor is it because standardized tests have been used as tools of oppression, which they have. Nor again is it because testing is such a taboo subject, which it is. No, am interested in standardized tests and testing because the subjects evoke so much emotion in U.S. social circles. By themselves, tests are generally valuable and, like competition, constitute a motivational vehicle for getting the best out of individuals. Yet the very word test usually elicits an emotional response among most Americans, who typically hate being tested. The reality of having to take a standardized generally strikes fear into the hearts of those who must face it. People perceive tests through the lenses of their personal experiences and feelings-e.g., I don't believe in the because didn't do well on it, or I don't think tests are valid because they don't reflect my ability, or Testing is a 'White' thing; it's what they do to us. suspect that these sentiments, though possessing a certain validity, also mask the fears and anxieties surrounding the tests. The challenge for a social scientist is to separate testing hysteria from testing validity. That is where research comes in. THE RACIST HISTORY OF TESTING The standardized testing movement has a racist history in both Europe and the United States (Hirsch, 1981). …
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