Black Americans Reduce the Racial IQ Gap

2006/10/01 by William T. Dickens, James R. Flynn · 9 citations
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Cognitive Abilities and Testing #Early Childhood Education and Development #Education, Achievement, and Giftedness

paper · doi:10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01802.x

openalex publication_date 2006/10/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/05

Abstract

It is often asserted that Black Americans have made no IQ gains on White Americans. Until recently, there have been no adequate data to measure trends in Black IQ. We analyzed data from nine standardization samples for four major tests of cognitive ability. These data suggest that Blacks gained 4 to 7 IQ points on non-Hispanic Whites between 1972 and 2002. Gains have been fairly uniform across the entire range of Black cognitive ability.

Cited by

• Intelligence: New findings and theoretical developments.
• The spectacles through which I see the race and IQ debate
• Group differences in IQ are best understood as environmental in origin.
• Race, IQ, and the search for statistical signals associated with so-called “X”-factors: environments, racism, and the “hereditarian hypothesis”
• Race and IQ: A Theory-Based Review of the Research in Richard Nisbett - s Intelligence and How to Get It
• Flynn effect [wikipedia]
• Intelligence quotient [wikipedia]
• James Flynn (academic) [wikipedia]
• Race and intelligence [wikipedia]