A Measure of Intelligence

When Pepper Stetler learned that her daughter, Louisa, who has Down Syndrome, would be required to take periodic IQ tests to secure support in school, she asked a simple question: Why? The hunt for an answer set Stetler on a winding, often dark investigation into how the IQ came to be the "irrefutable" standard for measuring intelligence.

Blending a mother's love and dedication to her daughter with incisive historical and cultural analysis, A Measure of Intelligence investigates the origins of the IQ test and its influence on our oppressive culture of high stakes testing. As she unravels the history of the IQ--exposing its roots in eugenics, racism, xenophobia, and ableism--Stetler realizes that the desire to quantify intelligence is closely tied to the desire to segregate society.

A Measure of Intelligence is at once a mother's determined quest, a demand for a fundamental reevaluation of how we understand an individual's perceived potential, and a recognition of what we miss when we judge one another by this warped scale.