This is a contextualised view of human intelligence which says we are not just biological but also cultural creatures, operating within a socio-political context, within a particular historical time and geographical space. The family is the earliest context in which we learn the limits of our control within physical and social constraints and opportunities. In sum, the nature of competence or intelligence lies in real skills or abilities that are applied in real situations to solve meaningful problems or to fashion actual products that are socially valued. It is not an abstract, cross-cultural or timeless entity, though elements of each intelligence will find expression in most cultures. To illustrate simply, the Eskimos have many words for snow in order to live safely in that environment.
Aboriginal people have highly developed skills which help survival in a very different environment.
The western urbanite may not see either of these as elements of intelligence, but if you withdraw from him his own tools, techniques and symbol systems for getting to work by car or public transport, he will indeed seem very 'stupid'. I have called this 'the social distribution of competence', elsewhere Gardner talks of his 'distributed view of intelligence'. In simpler terms, we speak of access, equal opportunities, educational disadvantage, social justice, and of the cultural bias of IQ tests, the 'hidden curriculum' of the middle class school, cooling out those children whose family backgrounds don't 'fit' with the dominant views of what is correct language, good manners, acceptable dress and behaviour. The family itself and the way parents structure the child's experience is, of course, the basic source of that social distribution. So although socially-defined forms of intelligence or competence may be restrictive, the active elaboration of each child's ability and the new challenges faced in each environment ensure creativity and radical challenge to the status quo.