The Bell Curve Summary

Intelligence is the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills. Intelligence, learning, development, and psychology are all different concepts but are very closely associated historically and in common practice (Oakes and Lipton, 2012). Learning is the processes and mental structures by which people accumulate experiences and make them into new meanings. Learning theories attempt to explain a process (Oakes and Lipton, 2012). Intelligence refers to mental power. The key to intelligence theories and measurements is that they try to determine differences among people; that is, no one is simply intelligent, he or she must be more or less intelligent than some comparison or individual group (Oakes and Lipton, 2012). Development is the orderly

He has trouble particularly with word problems in math and other areas that are not tangible. He has high motivation, but new situations and problems tend to throw him off more than his classmates. He needs a lot of practice in order to succeed, and he approaches situations in a more mechanical way. He claims that he need to be able to see it to understand and some ideas are too abstract for him to understand. When he gets frustrated, he plays the guitar and has also done some of his own arrangements on the guitar. Gavin is also very skilled at working with people, and his peers would turn to him as an

They stated that the average African American is less well educated and less wealthy than the average white because he or she is not born with the capacity to be as smart (Oakes and Lipton, 2012). They claim that the social programs that attempt to close to opportunity gaps, such as Head Start, compensatory education, and affirmative action are costly and useless (Oakes and Lipton, 2012). They argued that the programs will hurt the people that they are intending to help, by steering them away from the lower-level aspirations and occupation that suit their abilities, and the programs will harm the society because they give less intelligent people access to social positions that require greater aptitude (Oakes and Lipton, 2012). A variety of theories of learning and intelligence are embedded in The Bell Curve. According to H. H. Goddard, intelligence is inherited, which concluded that the poor and criminals had low intelligence as a trait passed on to their children. According to Charles Spearman, IQ predicts almost everything. IQ, or intelligence quotient, measures a person’s reasoning ability. In recent years, IQ tests are used more carefully than in the past. IQ tests are standardized and norm-referenced, which are characteristics that refer to the statistical procedures that