THE EDUCATION HANDICAP

Te Ao Hou, September 1961, Page 54

THE EDUCATION HANDICAP A Book Review by B. E. Souter. Assistant Secretary for Maori Affairs MAORI YOUTH, by David P. Ausubel, Price Milburn, Wellington, 1961, 18/-. This book by Professor Ausubel is the result of eleven months' field work in New Zealand in 1957–58 during the tenure of a Fulbright research grant. Dr Ausubel sets out to examine the aspirations of comparable groups of Maori and Pakeha adolescents in both an urban and rural environment. There is an interesting table of I.Q.s in the book which gives point to the Department of Maori Affairs campaign to encourage Maoris to move from rural areas to towns and cities. This table shows: FORM, AGE AND I.Q. OF SUBJECTS Number of Pupils Form Age Urban Sample Rural Sample and I.Q.MaoriPakehaMaoriPakeha 3rd Form31312121 4th Form14141414 5th Form331515 Total Pupils48485050 Mean Age (years-months)15–114–715–515–0 Otis I.Q.90.394.384.992.8 The table indicates that Maori children brought up in an urban environment, where living conditions are usually of a higher standard, make much better scores than Maori children from a rural

environment. It is often tacitly assumed in New Zealand that Maoris have a level of intelligence inferior to Europeans while many Americans make a similar assumption about the intelligence of Negroes. Amram Scheinfeld notes in his book, “You and Heredity”—“in any given section of the country the I.Q. average of Negroes are considerably lower than of whites. But also, in any given section, the environment of Negroes are relatively inferior. However, where the conditions for Negroes are better, their I.Q.s are higher (by at least seven points for those living in New York as compared with their relatives in the South). And where conditions for Negroes are good, their I.Q.s may average even higher than those of whites living where conditions are bad …” We may safely assume that, as the living conditions of Maoris improve, the scores made by Maori children in intelligence tests will also improve, till the stage is reached where Maori children make the same scores as European children. Dr Ausubel's investigations show that while the educational and vocational aspirations of Maori and Pakeha secondary school pupils are very much the same, the Maori child has much less chance of realising his aspirations. Dr Ausubel identifies various factors which stand in the way of Maori youths realising their aspirations. These are: