The Colour Problem: Eugenic Anxieties of Intellectual and Social Decline in Britain: 1945-1979 Público

Abstract

This project involves an examination of the persistence of scientific racism in Britain from 1945 to 1979. To this end, I examine the ways in which the language of race was used to articulate deeply-rooted societal anxieties, by examination of what I term a "eugenic framework." I do so through a dual structure: in the first part, an analysis of the debates surrounding "New Commonwealth" immigration, and in the second, an examination of the activities of the eugenicists and psychometricians in analyzing IQ within the context of the changing demographics of the British population. In the end, I argue that biological conceptions of race persisted in both public sphere conceptions of race and amongst a minority of hereditarian thinkers within the scientific sphere.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Chapter 1: The UNESCO Statement(s): The Rejection of Egalitarianism 10

Chapter 2: Immigration and the Imagined Community 14

Part 1: The Post-War Context 15

Part 2: Onset of New Commonwealth Immigration: Administrative Anxieties (1948- 19 1958)

Part 3: The Publicization of Immigration (1958-1962) 27

Part 4: Stopping the Flood: Legislating Immigration (1962-1968) 29

Part 5: The Enemy Within: Populism, Powellism, and Public Racism (1968-1979) 31

Chapter 3: The "Scientific" Sphere: Eugenics and Psychometrics 37

Part 1: History of the Eugenics Society 37

Part 2: Demography: Eugenics Research 41

Part 3: Active Propaganda: The Eugenics Society on Immigration 44

Part 4: IQ and Psychometrics 47

Part 5: History of IQ 48

Part 6: Cyril Burt and the Hereditarian School 49

Part 7: The Ramifications of Testing: Education Policy 55

Part 8: Jensenism and Psychometric Invigoration 58

Conclusion 64

Bibliography 68

About this Honors Thesis

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School	Emory College
Department	History
Degree	BA
Submission	Honors Thesis
Language	English
Research Field	History, European
Palabra Clave	eugenic britain race
Committee Chair / Thesis Advisor	Amdur, Kathryn E, Emory University
Committee Members	Lipstadt, Deborah, Emory University Gilman, Sander L, Emory University

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