Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study

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The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study (MTRAS) is a 1976 US adoption study by Richard A. Weinberg and Sandra Scarr. It tested the IQ of 130 black, white, and multiracial children adopted by white upper-middle-class families . To date, black children have scored an average of 15 points, or one standard deviation, less than white children in IQ tests. The aim of the study was to assess the influence of genetic and socio-cultural factors on the different performance of black and white children in intelligence tests. A follow-up study by the authors Richard Weinberg, Sandra Scarr and Irwin D. Waldmann appeared in 1992. While in the first study, black and multiracial adopted children at the age of 7 achieved IQ test results and school grades that were above the average for the white population, is a central one The result of the follow-up study, on the other hand, was that the IQ of black adolescents who grew up in white families did not differ significantly on average from the IQ of black adolescents who grew up with their birth parents when tested again at the age of 17. Various interpretations of this finding were given in a discussion that has continued to this day. To date, the MTRAS is the only adoption study on the topic of differences in intelligence for which a follow-up study has been carried out; the interpretation of its findings is controversial.

literature

  1. ^ Sandra Scarr, Richard A. Weinberg: IQ Test Performance of Black Children Adopted by White Families . In: American Psychologist . No. 31 , 1976, p. 726-739 , doi : 10.1037 / 0003-066x.31.10.726 .
  2. ↑ Arthur Jensen: educability and group differences . Basic Books, New York 1973.
  3. ↑ John Clinton Loehlin Gardner Lindzey, James Norman Spuhler: Race differences in intelligence . San Francisco 1975.
  4. ^ Richard Weinberg, Sandra Scarr, Irvin Waldman: The Minnesota Transracial Adoption Study: A follow-up of IQ test performance at adolescence . In: Intelligence . No. 16 , 1992, pp. 117-135 , doi : 10.1016 / 0160-2896 (92) 90028-p .
  5. ^ Drew Thomas: Racial IQ Differences among Transracial Adoptees: Fact or Artifact? In: Journal of Intelligence . tape 5 , no. 1 , 2015, p. 1 , doi : 10.3390 / jintelligence5010001 .