The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children- Revised Form (WISC-R) is a popular test for measuring different aspects of a child's ability. It covers ages 6-16, and commonly tests for a "verbal IQ" and a "performance IQ" (Hoare and Stanfield 2010). According to Wes G. Darou, the importance of the WISC-R lies in its ability to predict the future academic performance of children (1992). Darou, however, cites the work of Kleinfeld and Nelson (1991) to assert that the test does NOT maintain this predictive quality for Native or Indigenous students. Low verbal scores can be attributed to the cultural bias in questions (e.g., "Who discovered America?") as well as to more subtle language transfer errors. Darou uses an example of how the grammatical formulation of an interrogative from the Algonkian can be repeated in English for several generations (even when English is the first language of the children). This example shows how students can be speaking English from the cognitive point of view of their native language, thus resulting in low verbal IQ scores even when English is their first language. Darou's example is important because it demonstrates how even for native English-speakers, cultural information is still embedded in the language and can impact the outcome of a given intelligence measurement. Darou further illustrates an example of how Zachary, a Native Elder, performed exceptionally well in the parts of the test measuring performance IQ. Darou writes, "In a valuable review article, McShane and Plas(1984) show that Native students tend to score about 20 points lower than white norms on verbal sub-scales, and about 5 points higher than these norms on performance sub-scales" (Darou 1992: 96) and "The point here is that the tests are biased both for and against Native subjects in odd and complicated ways" (Darou 1992: 99). 

While the strength of the WISC-R may be measuring different types of intelligences,  it is still flawed in that the questions are susceptible to cultural bias. Furthermore, Darou's article made me think of the work of Tatiana Garakani, who studies the perspectives of teachers and students of education of Inuit youth in Nunavik (2016). Darou points out that an intelligence test can be biased both for and against Indigenous peoples, however, I think that even this distinction presupposes a clean dichotomy between "Indigenous" and "non-Indigenous perspectives", as well as a firm notion regarding the role of school and what performance in it looks like. According to Garakani, for example, Inuit teachers in Nunavik see school as a place for students to learn Inuktitut (the local language) and Inuk culture, whereas non-Inuit teachers see school as a place for students to learn social skills (Garanki 2016). So, if a test is geared to predict the future performance of a student in school, one must consider the role that school plays in the student's social world. As the case of Nunavik demonstrates, teachers within the same school perceive different roles of the institution in the lives of the students. Thus, if the role of school in the lives of students is uncertain or multiple, then a test that serves to predict the performance of a student in the school will be chasing a moving target. To conclude, even a test like WISC-R, which recognizes multiple types of intelligence that can be emphasized in different cultures, can be flawed because "performance" is itself subject to different interpretations, and because cultural assumptions still underlay the questions. 

Links: 

Hoare and Stanfield: https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/neuroscience/wechsler-intelligence-scale-for-children#:~:text=Assessment%20of%20general%20intelligence%20in,aspects%20of%20the%20child's%20ability.

Darou: chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ454067.pdf

Garakani: https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/etudinuit/2016-v40-n2-etudinuit04225/1055430ar/