Early Academic Career edit

Leta started her academic career as a professor of educational psychology. She was teaching at Teachers College in New York City. As a professor there, her research focused on the variability hypothesis between men and women [1]. Many experts, along with the general public, considered men to be superior in intelligence, which resulted in them being better employees. She had her own experiences with the difficulties of being a woman and looking for employment [2].

To add to Early Career & Marriage

Because of Leta's difficulty in being able to financially contribute to her marriage and obtain employment, she began to think about the "woman question" [2], inequalities in opportunities women faced in society[3]. At this point in her life, she switched her focus from literature to education and sociology. In a symposium conducted by Benjamin in 1988, he mentioned that Leta was able to begin her graduate studies because of a grant given to her by Coca-Cola[2]. At the time, Coca-Cola was being sued by the government for producing a beverage made with caffeine. Caffeine was considered to be dangerous to one's health. Coca-Cola originally wanted James Cattell to study the effects of caffeine in their cola, but after he declined, Harry Hollingworth was then approached by Coca-Cola. Harry accepted Coca-Cola's offer and hired Leta Hollingworth to be the director of the study.[2] It was one of the first applied psychology studies. The stipend Harry received from Coca-Cola for the study was enough to pay for Leta's graduate schooling.

Child E

Leta met Child E, Edward Hardy, in 1917. The Stanford-Binet Intelligence test had been recently published. She tested mentally impaired children with the test, and constrasted their scores to those of gifted children[2]. Edward was her first encounter with an exceptionally gifted child, and he then became a subject of a series of her articles and in her case study, Children above 180 IQ[1]. Leta kept updated records on Child E throughout his development to adulthood. Edward had scored 187 on the test, which was one of the highest recorded scores of the time[2], when he was just 8 years old[1]. He was born to highly educated parents. His mother had a medical degree and a law degree. Child E studied geometry, algebra, Greek, French, Spanish, German, and astronomy under a private tutor. He did not like playing with other children. Instead, he liked the company of his school books[1]. Despite being so intelligent, his goal was to become a minister and missionary[4]. Leta wrote her updates on Edward in many of her future articles. For instance, Leta checked up on Edward when he was 13 years old. He had finished his fourth semester at Columbia University. He continued to score 11 points higher on intelligence measures. He still had the same career goals at this age[1]. At the age of 14 years old, he was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa, and at 15 years old, he earned a Bachelor's of Arts from Columbia University. He completed his Master's and began to work on a Ph.D. at 16 years old. Even at this age, he still aimed to be a minister[1]. Throughout the updates on Edward, Leta realized that Edward's intelligence was not regressing with age, his gifted knowledge continued to grow, and his scores on mental tests stayed superior.

  1. ^ a b c d e f Jolly, Jennifer L. (2007). "The Research Legacy of Leta S. Hollingworth". Gifted Child Today. 30 (3): 50-64.
  2. ^ a b c d e f Silverman, Linda K. "Leta Stetter Hollingworth: Champion of the psychology of women and gifted children". Journal of Educational Psychology. 84 (1): 20–27. doi:10.1037/0022-0663.84.1.20.
  3. ^ Hollingworth, L.S. (1926c). Gifted children: Their nature and nurture. New York: Macmillan.
  4. ^ Hollingworth, L.S. (1917). "The psychology of a prodigious child". Journal of Applied Psychology. 1: 101–110.