Description
Dr. William Boyd Allison Davis was born on October 14, 1902, in Washington, DC. Dr. Davis came from a family that was familiar with activism. His grandfather had been an abolitionist lawyer, and his father led an anti-lynching committee of the NAACP.
n 1942, Davis received his doctorate from the University of Chicago, where he served as a faculty member for the next 40 years. He was the first African American to hold a full faculty position at a major white university. He was also one of the first African American anthropologists in the country. Davis served on the faculty of the Department of Education and Committee on Human Development.
vis worked closely with other social scientists there to conduct extensive studies. They studied infant and child rearing in both white and black families. Davis also embarked on a major study of standardized intelligence tests that were used in elementary schools. In his book Social-Class Influences upon Learning, Davis argued that these tests were biased towards middle-class students. In 1951, he co-authored an analysis of class-based student responses to the questions found on 10 intelligence tests.
Davis challenged the cultural bias of the testing system and fought for the understanding of human potential without regard to race or class. He considered his work on intelligence testing to be the most successful aspect of his career. His research led many cities to abolish or revise intelligence tests. As he later recalled, “This one time I got what I wanted: a direct effect on society from social science research.” Davis’s research also helped inspire the Head Start Program.
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