Copyright

Jon Røyne Kyllingstad

Published On

2026-03-02

Page Range

pp. 303–336

Language

  • English

Print Length

34 pages

10. “Culture” and Representability in the Norwegian Standardization of WISC-R

  • Jon Røyne Kyllingstad (author)
Chapter of: Historicizing IQ Testing: Intelligence Assessments and their Role in Norwegian Society from the 1900s to the Present (pp. 303–336)

This chapter explores in detail the translation and adaptation of the Norwegian versions of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (WISC-R) in 1974 –1978. Particular attention is paid the linguistic and cultural adaptation of the test and the “norming” of the IQ scale, and to the criteria behind the selection of a ‘representative’ sample of Norwegian school children on which the test was tried out. The chapter shows how the adaptation of WISC-R, in practice, has been based on a monolithic, quantitative and hierarchical notion of a national culture, mainly represented by white majority children of well-educated parents.

Contributors

Jon Røyne Kyllingstad

(author)
Associate professor and Research project leader at University of Oslo

Jon Røyne Kyllingstad is a historian and associate professor at the University of Oslo, Museum of University History/Museum of Cultural History, where he is the leader of the research project Historicizing Intelligence, which this book is based upon. He is a specialist in the history of science and the history of academic institutions with a focus on Norway. He was previously head conservator at the Norwegian Museum of Technology. His last book Rase: en vitenskapshistorie [Race: a history of a science] sums up two decades of work on changing ideas about race, ethnicity and the nation, within physical anthropology, genetics, and humanities disciplines such as archaeology and history in Norway. Similar topics were also addressed in Measuring the Master Race, published by Open Book Publishers in 2014.