Breaking new ground and old taboos, Richard J. Herrnstein and Charles Murray tell the story of a society in transformation. At the top, a cognitive elite is forming in which the passkey to the best schools and the best jobs is no longer social background but high intelligence. At the bottom, the common denominator of the underclass in increasingly low intelligence rather than racial or social disadvantage.
The Bell Curve describes the state of scientific knowledge about questions that have been on people's minds for years but have been considered too sensitive to talk about openly--among them, IQ's relationship to crime, unemployment, welfare, child neglect, poverty, and illegitimacy; ethnic differences in intelligence; trends in fertility among women of different levels of intelligence; and what policy can do--and cannot do--to compensate for differences in intelligence. Brilliantly argued and meticulously documented, The Bell Curve is the essential first step in coming to grips with the nation's social problems.
Richard J. Herrnstein held the Edgar Pierce Chair in Psychology at Harvard University until his death in 1994. Charles Murray, the author of Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980, is the Bradley Fellow at AEI.
Table of Contents
Introduction
Part 1: The Emergence of a Cognitive Elite
Cognitive Class and Education, 1900-1990
Cognitive Partitioning by Occupation
The Economic Pressure to Partition
Steeper Ladders, Narrower Gates
Part 2: Cognitive Classes and Social Behavior
Poverty
Schooling
Unemployment, Idleness, and Injury
Family Matters
Welfare Dependency
Parenting
Crime
Civility and Citizenship
Part 3: The National Context
Ethnic Differences in Cognitive Ability
Ethnic Inequalities in Relation to IQ
The Demography of Intelligence
Social Behavior and the Prevalence of Low Cognitive Ability
Part 4: Living Together
Raising Cognitive Ability
The Leveling of American Education
Affirmative Action in Higher Education
Affirmative Action in the Workplace
The Way We Are Headed
A Place for Everyone
Afterword Appendix 1: Statistics for People Who Are Sure They Can't Learn Statistics Appendix 2: Technical Issues Regarding the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth Appendix 3: Technical Issues Regarding the Armed Forces Qualification Test as a Measure of IQ Appendix 4: Regression Analyses from Part 2 Appendix 5: Supplemental Material for Chapter 13 Appendix 6: Regression Analyses from Chapter 14 Appendix 7: The Evolution of Affirmative Action in the Workplace
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