IRHS - Institutional Racism in Health and Science


Analysis of Case Studies - Case Study 1

As part of your assignment submissions for the semester - you will choose articles to read as a case study on particular topics.

The first case study occurs in week 3 of the semester, for the topic of eugenics. You will pick an article to read and complete the annotation and analysis phase of the instrument. The analysis phase will involve considering the questions listed above for the entire document. Short answers should be supported by text and examples from the article. Here is an example analysis for an entire article.

Case Study Example

by Felicity A. Crawford

Phase 1: Paper that was annotated (see Perusall):

Rushton, J.P. & Templer, D.T. (March 15, 2012). Do pigmentation and the melanocortin system modulate aggression and sexuality in humans as they do in other animals? Personality and Individual Differences 53(2012) pp. 4 -8. Elsevier.

Phase 2: Analysis (same reference as above)

  1. What is the overall claim or idea made in this article?

    Dark skinned people are violent, aggressive, and hyper-sexualized: “We have found, in both humans and non-human animals, that darker pigmentation is associated with lower (IQ). Lighter pigmentation is associated with the slow reproductive strategy (K) including lower birth rates, less infant mortality, less violent crime, less HIV/AIDS, plus higher IQ, higher income, and greater longevity” Rushton & Templer, 2012, p.5).

  2. Who is making the claim?

    The authors, J.P. Rushton and D.I. Templer, are psychologists from two universities in North America: University of Western Ontario & California School of Professional Psychology.

    Rushton was known for his racist views: “Whites have, on average, more neurons and cranial size than blacks… Blacks have an advantage in sport because they have narrower hips — but they have narrower hips because they have smaller brains.” –J. Philippe Rushton, speaking at the 2000 American Renaissance conference Templer was known for his ideas on race and intelligence and was a frequent speaker at white nationalist American Renaissance conferences. In one speech Templer said “the present problems of blacks have literally nothing to do with slavery, with segregation, or with lynching, and I wish they would shut up” (The Cost of Ignoring Group Differences - ‘Race Realists are Modern Day Galileos’ - YouTube”. www.youtube.com. Retrieved September 22, 2021).

  3. To whom is the claim applied? Is the target of the claim specified explicitly, or implied?

    Dark-skinned people (Blacks): “The correlations between human pigmentation, aggression, and sexuality (and IQ), is further supported by the anthropological and sociological research on “pigmentocracies” …A pigmentocracy is a society in which status hierarchies are based largely on skin color, with lighter skin denoting higher status and darker skin, lower status” (p.4).

  4. To whom is the claim being made? Is the intended audience clear?

    The scientific community. The paper was published in a major scientific journal, Personality, and Individual Differences

  5. Does the claim implicitly or explicitly include or exclude certain groups? If so, who? If not, what information do we have about the included/excluded groups?

    The claim explicitly excludes light-skinned people (Whites and Asians). According to the authors, “Blacks are overrepresented in crime statistics relative to Whites and Asians” (p.5)