How are tests bias towards or against a specific race?

How can a test for promotion of a job position be bias against a race of people. I.E. the test firefighters took in New Haven, CT thats been in the news lately? I'm having a hard time figuring it out, anyone care to enlighten me?|||I remember my sociology professor giving an example about an anaology using cup is to saucer. He said lower class minorities wouldn't know what a saucer is which seemed far more racist to me than assuming college bound teenagers wouldn't know what a saucer is.|||I would imagine that it is held that based on the percentage of minorities that took the test, that less than that same percentage passed the test. Ipso facto the test is biased. That is a faulty premise.|||Depends on who's doing the testing.|||I don't know how a test can be racially biased. Every race has the opportunity to study for a test. Wouldn't it be racist to say a certain test is too hard for blacks or hispanics? I think that in some races the parents don't care that much about their kids education. The parents don't stress education in the home. So these kids start out from an early age not trying very hard in school. My wife is a teacher at an inner city school. She says that a lot of the parents have no interest in their kids education. But then when these kids become adults, and they can't compete very well with other people on tests, they want to cry racism. Read the story below about a black kid who grew up in a bad neighborhood with no father in the home. He became a brain surgeon and an author. His mother couldn't even read, but she made him do his homework and read books. To me that proves that it all starts with the parents attitude. A big part of the problem is girls having babies at very young ages, and the fathers don't stick around to help raise them. Some guys actually think it's cool to go around and get several girls pregnant.





I don't think that the firefighters test had any questions about cups and saucers.|||There is a large body of literature on cultural bias in standardized testing. It generally has two components:





1. In some questions, white people are made to look superior to minorities.





2. In some questions, there is a presumption of knowledge that is more likely to be held by whites than minorities, providing white students with a hidden advantage.





It is where some question are ask that some students can not answer because of their culture.





In a school test once, there was a question that ask the student to finish the sentence.





The cup goes with the _____.





A. table


B. saucer


C. Plate





The answer was B saucer. But a student from a lower income (maybe) might not know this and get the answer wrong.





This question would have beem culturally biases.