Intellectual Development of Australian Aboriginals

Reviews the book, Children of the Dispossessed by Barry Nurcombe (1976). This book consists of two somewhat unrelated parts. First, there is a competent and sensible, though rather abbreviated, survey of the literature on deprivation and compensatory schooling and secondly, quite a full account of the aboriginal culture in Australia, and of an experiment in preschool education. It is refreshing to read a study based on an entirely different culture from that of American blacks. The author is well aware of the dangers of interpreting native culture, and planning native education, in terms of western psychology. He gives a dispassionate exposition of Jensen and cultural "deprivation" versus cultural "difference" or "relativism" theories; and he clarifies the distinction between the concepts of potential, competence, performance, and assessment. The book is lucidly written and can be recommended to developmental and educational psychology students, as well as to cross cultural specialists. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)