ABSTRACT
School psychology has a long history that intersects with other branches of psychology (Frisby & Reynolds, 2005; Gutkin & Reynolds, 2009). For instance, early studies which influenced teaching and learning focused on the intellectual assessment and school achievement of African American, immigrant, and other ethnic minority students (Valencia & Suzuki, 2001). This research is now well known for its failure to consider variables that are critical in the assessment of students’ abilities (Valencia & Suzuki, 2001). For example, in the assessment of intelligence, IQ tests were given a special status—it was assumed that standardized instruments such as the Stanford Binet Test could uncover differences in innate intellectual ability between individuals or racial groups. Few acknowledged that in the development of IQ tests minority children were not included in standardization samples. Further, in research on differences between groups on IQ tests, little, if any, attention was paid to social class, English language proficiency, or cultural differences between the groups being compared.
