Testing Across Cultures

  • Fons J. R. van de Vijver
  • Ype H. Poortinga
Chapter
Part of the Evaluation in Education and Human Services Series book series (EEHS, volume 28)

Abstract

There has been a longstanding, scientific interest in the comparison of people belonging to different cultural groups. In the course of the history of Western science, practitioners of different disciplines have been involved. During the Renaissance the equality of races was an issue for theologians. In 1550 a number of them convened at the court of Charles V in Spain to solve the question of how the American Indians could be colonized “in a Christian fashion.” According to the chronicles, the debate focused on the question of whether the Indians formed an inferior race in comparison with their Spanish colonizers. The issue was never settled, even though “some of the most learned and powerful men of the age” participated (Boorstin, 1985, p. 633). During the nineteenth century, racial differences had become the domain of social philosophers, who, in turn, “passed the buck” (the use of the expression in this context coming from Mann, 1940) to psychologists.

Keywords

Item Response Theory Context Variable Intergroup Difference Skin Conductance Response Multiple Correlation Coefficient 
These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1991

Authors and Affiliations

  • Fons J. R. van de Vijver
  • Ype H. Poortinga

There are no affiliations available

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