ABSTRACT
This paper evaluates major trends, theories and practices in assessing the culturally different. The theme is that traditional standardized tests of cognitive ability are appropriate for middle-class mainstream individuals regardless of color or ethnicity. Those who benefit from the middle-class curriculum of the typical school can be validly and reliably assessed by tests constructed by middle-class psychometricians using situations that match the background and environmental circumstances of the middle-class individual. Where there are deficiencies or fundamental differences in the rearing and environmental background and circumstances of the individual, the traditional objective standardized tests are neither valid nor reliable in measuring the cognitive performance level of mental development. Such anomalies lie not only in the content and procedural methods of the test, but also in the very approach to assessment that cannot capture the true capacity of the atypical individual. Three approaches developed by Feuerstein, Kaufman and Sternberg are discussed as viable models of assessment for the 21st Century.
