About the Book
In a quest to advocate for her daughter, Pepper Stetler uncovers the dark history of the IQ that leads her to question what exactly we are measuring when we measure intelligence.
When Pepper Stetler was told that her daughter, Louisa, who has Down Syndrome, would be regularly required to take IQ tests to secure support in school, she asked a simple question: why? In questioning the authority and relevance of the test, Stetler sets herself on a winding, often dark, investigation into how the IQ test came to be the irrefutable standard for measuring intelligence. The unsettling history causes Stetler to wonder what influence this test will have over her daughter's future, and, if its genesis is so mired in eugenics, whether Louisa should be taking it at all.
So what are we measuring when we try to measure "intelligence"? As she uncovers the history of IQ, exposing its roots in eugenics, racism, xenophobia, and ableism, Stetler realizes that the desire to quantify intelligence is closely tied to a desire to segregate society. She traces its legacy from inception to the present day, where schools and society have adopted the IQ as shorthand for an individual's aptitude-in essence, their worth. Boldly, Stetler questions how this rigid definition of intelligence has influenced who society holds up as successful and, perhaps more importantly, what it is that we miss when we judge someone solely on their measured intelligence.
Blending a mother's love and dedication to her daughter with incisive historical and cultural analysis, A Measure of Intelligenceinvestigates the origins and influence of the IQ test on our modern education system, questions how we define and judge intelligence, challenges its flawed foundation, and argues for a fundamental reevaluation of how we understand an individual's perceived potential.
About the Author :
Pepper Stetler is an Associate Professor of Art History and the Associate Director of the Humanities Center at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She has written extensively on issues facing people with intellectual disabilities and their caregivers, in publications such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, Slate, Ploughshares, and Gulf Coast. Stetler also writes about the art and photography of early twentieth century Europe, including exhibition catalog essays for the Museum of Modern Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Review :
Praise for A Measure of Intelligence by Pepper Stetler
This remarkable book fuses memoir, investigation, and social critique. With searing clarity, Stetler chronicles the origins and the developments of intelligence testing, and at the same time, with grace and warmth, she reconsiders her own ideas of intelligence and worth. In the end, Stetler offers us a chance to examine with nuance and care how we think about the intellectual capacities of the people we love. This is an important and illuminating contribution to disability studies. —Daisy Hernández, author of The Kissing Bug: A True Story of a Family, an Insect, and a Nation's Neglect of a Deadly Disease
Intelligence testing has been a hotly contested subject since its earliest days. Pepper Stetler has joined the debate with extraordinary insight and empathy as she recounts society's attempt to reduce her beloved daughter to a number — and how she fought back. This is a fresh and enlightening take — and a very compelling read. —Adam Cohen, National Book Award finalist, and author of Imbeciles: The Supreme Court, American Eugenics, and the Sterilization of Carrie Buck
Stetler's rigorous, accessible dismantling of our notion of intelligence is exhilarating. Told through a gripping account—personal, political, and historical—of intellectual disability and the ways it gets constructed (to our great detriment) as a moral failing, Stetler's case for inclusion, acceptance, and destigmatization is convincing, timely, and necessary.—Andrew Leland, author of The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight
This book is amazing! Masterfully weaving research of all kinds with personal experience and insight, Pepper Stetler tracks the origins and history of the IQ Test and its impact on our world. But A Measure of Intelligence is about so much more than a test. It's a profound, well-researched, wise reckoning with our values and how we might reshape them to prioritize what matters most: community, belonging, and the inherent worth of every human person. And those are values that can liberate us all. —Heather Lanier, Author of Raising a Rare Girl
Has there ever been a measurement device more widely abused than the IQ test? In this compelling, nuanced, and (it has to be said) fiercely intelligent book, Pepper Stetler takes us through the dialectic of raising a child with an intellectual disability—worrying whether one is doing too much or not enough, knowing that the quantitative measurement of intelligence is absurd yet acknowledging that it is necessary for obtaining the support services your child needs. A Measure of Intelligence carries on the noble and necessary project begun by Stephen Jay Gould's The Mismeasure of Man. —Michael Bérubé, author of Life as Jamie Knows It: An Exceptional Child Grows Up
This book is not just about the concept of intelligence and the use of IQ tests. It is a riveting and well-researched account of a parent's search for understanding and embarking on a journey to a new way of thinking. The paradigm shift discussed in the book moves us from the past into a future that provides a fuller and more positive picture of humanity, and one that provides space to be oneself. Reading this book will force you to rethink assumptions and historical practices.—Robert L. Schalock, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus of Psychology at Hastings College, former President and Fellow of the American Association of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
"I would encourage everyone, whether a mother or not, to read and reckon for themselves." – Melanie McGehee, Motherhood, Literature & Art
