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ROBERT A. GORDON

Department of Sociology 
Johns Hopkins University
Baltimore,  Maryland 21218 USA 
Tel. (410) 516-7634, 
Fax (410) 516-7590
E-mail:  gordonra@jhu.edu

Curriculum Vita (PDF)

I am continuing research conducted as The Project for the Study of Intelligence and Society, in concert with Professor Linda S. Gottfredson, of the University of Delaware. This project aims to update misconceptions of intelligence currently regnant in sociology , especially since the end of World War II. Prior to that, intelligence had long occupied a respected position as a variable, albeit an often under-utilized and insufficiently understood one, in much of American sociology. To take but one illustration, intelligence, now often formalized as the general intelligence factor, or g, has frequently been portrayed in modern sociology as culturally biased, but an enormous body of research has found that the variable is not biased for predictive purposes to any important degree for US populations. Many of my publications have dealt with the cultural bias issue. The project continues to extend the usefulness of g for understanding society and sociological phenomena, often by critiquing work that ignores or misrepresents the importance of intelligence, both within psychology and sociology, but especially by demonstrating its importance in new contexts, particularly noneducational ones such as employment and criminality and other forms of deviance. For this purpose, I have introduced a population-IQ-outcome model, which has successfully accounted for Black-White differences in many important outcomes over long periods of time. Examples of these outcomes include Black-White differences in opinions concerning: the outcome of the O.J. Simpson murder trial, poverty, criminality, HIV infection, and single-parent motherheaded families with children under age 18. Ongoing research focuses on testing the population-IQ-model further and massively extending its findings regarding various indices of criminality.

 

COURSES

RECENT PUBLICATIONS

230.120-- Sociology of Leadership

230.327-- Case Studies in Social Deviance & Social Policy

230.386-- Intelligence & Society

230.387-- Intelligence & Social Policy

Everyday Life as an Intelligence Test: Effects of Intelligence and Intelligence

INTELLIGENCE 24(l) 203-320 Copyright ©1997 Ablex Publishing Corporation ISSN: 0160-2896 

Abstract (pdf)

 

   

 

Johns Hopkins University JHU Department of Sociology