On the fatal attractiveness of psychology: Racism of intelligence in education

Abstract

Psychology has penetrated many domains of society and can be considered as a very successful social science. It is widely present in education, in the workplace, in court and not to mention in people’s private life. This success owes to a large extent to the fact that psychology offers a scientific credit to an important and key cultural principle in our Western societies: the belief of the primacy of the individual over the situation as a cause of behaviour. Psychology has played a key role in substantiating this cultural frame by proposing an ‘objective’ measure of intelligence and by repeatedly fuelling the idea that in a democratic society and a competitive educational system, the more intelligent are the winners. Hand in hand, education and psychology have contributed to a powerful illusion that hides the impact of power and privilege in the schools and recycle then into individual merit. This chapter focuses on the love story between social domination and the psychology of intelligence. I discuss the development of intelligence testing and show how research in psychology has served the domination and expropriation of the haves over the have-nots. I call this form of social control the racism of intelligence, which, in a latter point, I expose the main characteristics.