Defining difference : race and racism in the history of psychology

This text brings together scholarship on the history of psychology and race.

Throughout the history of the field, psychological discourse has been shaped by social concerns, and its discourse on race is no exception.

Psychologists have promoted and fought against racism and a nuanced historical account requires analysis of both dimensions.

The contributors seek to understand the relationship between the changes in the field and broader social change by mapping the changing discourse for "defining difference" through race.

Topics covered include: essentialism and the history of the concept of race; ideas of race in the work of 19th-century and 20th-century psychologists; psychological discourse on topics such as "mixed-race" people; political uses of racial research; changes in textbook presentations of race and intelligence; and international perspectives on psychology and race.

The contibutors also examine the prominence and persistence of American research on racial differences in intelligence as well as the work of Kenneth Clark and Horace Mann Bond in combatting racism in science and society. This volume aims to increase readers' understanding of the link between racial studies and social attitudes in our time, and aims to provide a comprehensive examination of that link through history.