Psychology, Society, and Ability Testing (1859-2002):
Transformative alternatives to Mental Darwinism and Interactionism

Paul F. Ballantyne 2002©
pballan@comnet.ca

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction

Chapter Overview

Chapter 1: Organic Evolution and The Mental Continuity Doctrine: Mental Darwinism proposed and elaborated (1859-1916)

Section One:
Organic Evolution And Human Descent (Organic Darwinism)

Section Two:
The Mental Continuity of Species Doctrine (Mental Darwinism)

Conclusion

Chapter 2: American Animal Psychology and The Eugenics Movement: Mental Darwinism Institutionalized (1900-1918)

Section One:
Pfungst and the Blight of Lay-public Anthropomorphism

Section Two:
The Loeb-Jennings Debate and Early American Comparative Psychology

Section Three:
Two American Comparative Psychologies

Conclusion

Chapter 3: Assimilation and Sorting Before World War I: American Schooling, Administrative Reform, And Individual Ability Testing

Section One:
From Common Schools to Progressive School Reform

Section Two:
Modern Schools: Structural-functional aspects and professional debates

Section Three:
Early educational debates (Dewey vs. Thorndike and Cubberley)

Section Four:
Schools as Sorters (Prior to World War I)

Conclusion

Chapter 4: The Rise of Group Ability Testing: World War I, School Tracking, and Early Vocational Guidance (1918-1932)

Section One:
War Committees and Motives for Army Testing (Yerkes vs. Scott)

Section Two:
The Postwar Context for Testing: Political unrest, College funding paradox, and Uniform Entrance Exams

Section Three:
School Tracking: Applying the additive definition of intelligence

Section Four:
Iowa Studies of Rural Schools

Section Five:
Mental aptitudes, Vocational guidance, and Social relations

Conclusion

Chapter 5: From New Deal Training Programs to World War II Testing (1933-1946)

Section One:
The Great Depression: Educational Funding, New Deal Programs, and Ideological Maintenance

Section Two:
World War II Testing and Training: Psychometric ideology regained

Chapter 6: Ability Testing and the Cold War Confidence Game: Vocational assessment, Entrance exams, and the Search for Talent during the rise of a military-industrial complex (1947-1963)

Section One:
Promises, promises: Cold War confidence and guidance in an expanding job market (1946-1952)

Section Two:
Initial Post-W.W.II Vocational Guidance and Higher Educational Gatekeeping (1946-1953)

Section Three:
Ideology and technopolitics of the Korean War and Sputnik era (1950-1961)

Section Four:
Administrative Mechanisms of the Post-Korea Sorting Machine: Military Deferment; Curricular Reform, and U.S. Employment Service Tests

Section Five:
Education in a Free Society (1958-1963): The National Defense Education Act, Project Talent, and Reevaluation

Conclusion

Chapter 7: Questioning The Ideology Of Testing: The modernist search for an appropriate mental yardstick (1964-1981)

Section One:
The Great Society versus Escalation in Vietnam (1964-1974):

Section Two:
Weakness of Traditional Interactionism (1946-1979): Rectangular Metaphor, Head Start assessment, and Disciplinary adjustments

Section Three:
Ability Testing Under Attack (1970-1981): Testing Litigation and ETS evasions

Conclusion

Chapter 8: From Testing Malaise and School Accountability to Neo-Vygotskian Approaches (1981-2002).

Section One:
Cultural and Testing Malaise during the 1980s & 1990s

Section Two:
Strengths and Weakness of Revised Interactionism

Section Three:
Toward an explicit Neo-Vygotskian Methodology

Conclusion and prescriptions for remedial action:
Toward a 21st century transformative approach to ability testing

Bibliography