ABSTRACT
The topic of psychological and educational assessment and cultural diversity has received a great deal of professional and public attention. Some well-known court cases in the 1970s and 1980s, most notably Larry P. v. Riles and Diana v. State Board of Education (both in California) and Guadalupe v. Tempe Elementary School District (Arizona), placed the issue of cultural validity of standardized assessment instruments in the forefront of professional practice. These cases resulted in calls for change (and, in some cases, legal mandates for change) in special education assessment practices with racial/ethnic-minority youth. During the 1990s, a widespread urry of professional and public attention accompanied Hernstein and Murray’s (1994) book The Bell Curve: Intelligence and Class Structure in American Life, which addressed the issue of racial/ethnic differences and possible bias on IQ and achievement tests. These few examples among many provide some evidence that the issue of cultural diversity in assessment is complex and has become a serious concern. This concern has stimulated the eld to take action in research and practice, as evidenced by numerous books and chapters on the topic (e.g., Castillo, Quintana, Zamarripa, 2000a, 2000b; Dana, 2000a, 2000b, 2005; Rhodes et al., 2005; Suzuki, Ponterotto, & Meller, 2001).
