Testers and Testing: Sociology of School Psychology - Hardcover

Milofsky, Carl

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 081351407X ISBN 13: 9780813514079

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 1989

Synopsis

Carl Milofsky studies the organizational dilemmas that confront school psychologists and the strategies they employ to work effectively in schools. He looks closely at the process of intelligence testing, showing that important racial differences exist in the testing of black as opposed to white children. He finds that psychologists spend two to three times longer testing white children than black children. He argues that since test scores are not objective measures that can be interpreted quickly, the time spent in testing is very important. He explains these differences as a product of organizational differences in urban and non-urban schools. Urban school psychologists define their role passively and narrowly; they think of themselves as bureaucrats, and as a result urban children are more likely to receive hurried, often careless testing. Suburban psychologists often have a different sense of their job. They think of themselves as professionals who serve children and defend them against an irrational, coercive organization.The larger question Milofsky addresses is how professionals in bureaucratic organizations can at once follow the intellectual and ethical dictates of their specialized training while fulfilling the administrative requirements of the organizations for which they work. Thus, school psychologists offer an example of work problems shared by doctors, engineers, and other professionals who are often employed by large, complex organizations. By reinterpreting the connection between intelligence testing and race, Milofsky has made a major contribution to our understanding of institutional racism and school psychology.

About this title

About the Author

milofsky@bucknell.edu I am Professor of Sociology at Bucknell University and I've been here since 1982. Before that I taught at Yale in the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and in sociology and before that at Richmond College-CUNY. I also completed post-doctoral study in Education at the University of Chicago. My early research involved issues in educational policy with a focus on special education. At Yale I was one of the founding members of the Program on Nonprofit Organizations and most of my research for the last twenty years has involved nonprofits, especially community-based organizations. I came to Berkeley with an interest in community organizing and policy studies and while there I worked at the Childhood and Government Project and in the Graduate School of Public Policy. Policy studies has remained the main focus of my teaching, my research, and my community work. Being able to focus on community-based organizations continued my involvement in community organizing. I think of Berkeley as my 'ethnicity'. It involves a way of life that includes activism, eating strange foods, and bringing rich social theory to bear on everything from bread baking to social conflict in Northern Ireland. The intellectual legacy I most identify with is institutional analysis in the style of Phil Selznick, Art Stinchcombe, and Chic Perrow. I think it contrasts sharply with the 'new' institutionalism so I call it the 'orthodox' institutionalism. For me it takes the internal activity of institutions and organizations seriously and emphasizes comparing social life across institutional cultures.

Edition details

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 1989
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 081351407X
• ISBN 13: 9780813514079
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 270