A Measure of Intelligence: One Mother's Reckoning With the IQ Test

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 Intelligence investigates 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.

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.