More Evidence of Cultural Bias in Testing

There is a large body of literature on cultural bias in standardized testing. It generally has two components:

1. In some questions, white people are made to look superior to minorities.

2. In some questions, there is a presumption of knowledge that is more likely to be held by whites than minorities, providing white students with a hidden advantage.

But there are, apparently, other, equally insidious forms of bias to be found, even in preschool prep books. A family friend recently wrote to say that she was running her young daughter through such a book, and came to a page with a picture of a female mouse who had on all her clothes except her shoes. The kid was supposed to identify what was missing from the picture.

“She forgot her necklace,” the child answered.

“Well, yes, but what else?” her mother asked.

“She forgot her bracelet,” the child answered.

“Okay, anything else?” the mother queried.

The child thought for a minute. “Her tiara?”

Plainly, this text must be immediately amended to eradicate its blatant and hurtful anti-princess bias.