Guest Author - Gregory A. Kompes

Do you think the definition of intelligence is culturally derived?

Intelligence simply defined: "mental capacity." Assigning value to this capacity is obviously culturally derived.

Len, one of the most intelligent men I've known and worked with had the mental capacity to challenge all we knew and create new solutions for long-standing problems. In this context, the man was brilliant, yet he had to be checked before leaving the office to make sure his socks matched and he had shoes on.

Those who deemed this man intelligent value his mental capacity for seeing our world uniquely and his ability to solve problems. Yet, I can't tell you the number of times I called his wife and asked her to bring footwear for this think tank leader.

Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, a report of a task force convened by the American Psychological Association in 1995, states: "Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought. Although these individual differences can be substantial, they are never entirely consistent: a given person’s intellectual performance will vary on different occasions, in different domains, as judged by different criteria. Concepts of 'intelligence' are attempts to clarify and organize this complex set of phenomena" (from Stalking the Wild Taboo: see link below).

The implication of this theory for online courses has nothing to do with the possibility that the students may be from different countries. The concept of culturally derived definitions isn't necessarily at the large, social structure levels (i.e., nationalism, ethnicity, etc.), but rather the issue is an internal cultural definition at the level of field and concept experts.

Cultural diversity at this level is defined as "Culture by Specialty." From an online learning capacity, learners seeking knowledge in a given field are themselves a learning culture. Therefore, the intelligence definition for any given subject will be altered to define the subject subgroup as a culture unto itself. The subgroup will therefore define who they consider intelligent leaders for their group and will seek those teachers and mentors they deem intelligent to learn from. While the fashion subgroups may not choose Len as their educator, world leaders seeking solutions view him as a key teacher.