Asian Americans: Achievement beyond IQ

The author's greatest debt is to Philip E. Vernon, that Columbus who explored the IQ and achievements of Chinese and Japanese Americans with so much intelligence and thoroughness. Vernon had only one limitation. He could not know what would only be known in the future: that these groups had inflated IQ scores because of obsolete norms.

Those who deserve thanks divide into the heroic and the very helpful. The first category includes Robert Gardner of the East-West Center who met literally dozens of requests for data; Stephen Goodell who unlocked the resources of the Library of Congress; Arthur Jensen who was persistently cooperative in the best traditions of scholarship; Thomas Sowell who not only supplied raw data but also, through his published works, influenced my overall approach to explaining group achievement. The second includes many. Richard Lynn criticized the entire manuscript and Robert Gordon raised objections to a paper summarizing its contents. Nicholas Mackintosh made several valuable comments. George Mayeske, William W. Cooley, Ronald Flaughter, Arthur A. Dole, Lawrence H. Stewart, and John Raven supplied data about various IQ studies. Christopher Jencks provided instruction about the relationship between IQ and income. Michael Levin of the US Census Bureau and Alex von Cube of the Population Reference Bureau supplied demographic data. As usual, the staff of the Educational Testing Service was both helpful and generous, Eleanor V. Horne, Barbara Hillhouse, Donald A. Rock, Paula Knepper.

Finally, all elegance of format is due to my colleague Ramesh Thakur, the fidelity of the text to Betty Larkins and Jeanette Bonar.

James R. Flynn

January 1, 1991

-xi-