Copyright
Ageliki LefkaditouPublished On
2026-03-02Page Range
pp. 29–72Language
- English
Print Length
44 pages
1. Between Change and Stability
The Thorny Adaptation Process of the Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scale in Norway
Chapter of: Historicizing IQ Testing: Intelligence Assessments and their Role in Norwegian Society from the 1900s to the Present(pp. 29–72)
This chapter recounts the development of the first full Norwegian adaptation of the Stanford–Binet intelligence scale by school psychiatrist Johan Lofthus during the interwar period. It begins with earlier efforts to adapt the test and concludes with Lofthus´s departure from his school position. The chapter examines what the test’s creation reveals about standardization as scientific practice and sheds light on the convergence of educational and medical ideals that fueled the processes of adaptation. It further investigates what facilitated or resisted change and movement for the tests and the actors associated with them. Finally, it shows the portrayal of these as simultaneously fraught and indispensable diagnostic tools, situated between expressions of care and control, scientific and political projects.
Contributors
Ageliki Lefkaditou
(author)Historian and philosopher of science at University of Leeds
Ageliki Lefkaditou is a historian and philosopher of science with PhDs from the University of Leeds (UK) and the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (Greece). Her research focuses on the history of the human and biological sciences from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. She is currently investigating the history of intelligence testing in Norway and has previously published on racial science and its connections to nationalism. Ageliki is particularly interested in the intersections of science, art, and politics, and issues related to nature/culture. She has curated several science museum exhibitions and is an award-winning curator and documentary film producer.