12. Tests, Metrics, and the Making of the Norwegian School, 1950–2025

This chapter draws up the Norwegian history of the use of psychometrics in education, with the Institute of Educational Research at the University of Oslo as a central case. It shows how the use of IQ tests in the early days of the institute were part of providing scientific legitimization of both pedagogy as a developing field and ambitious school reforms, with a subsequent break in the 70s. It employs a comparative lens on transformation of the testing of individual performance to the testing of school performance in the Pisa-era – thus highlighting continuities and discontinuities between testing in the social democratic era and the “knowledge society” of the 2000s.