Krigsmakt och högmodernism : En studie av inskrivningsprovens införande i Sverige under 1940-talet

This study is examining the influence of high modernism in the creation of and adoption of IQ-tests (inskrivningsprov/I-prov) as a means to assess conscripts’ mental fitness in the in the Swedish military during the 1940s. The aim of the study is to examen how ideas such as high modernism takes shape in a military context. Using James C. Scott’s and Zygmunt Bauman’s theories about modernisation and high modernism, the study asks what the arguments for the tests were, how they came to be implemented, and how the tests were received. The results show that the implementation of the tests was influenced by ideas such as high modernism that was already present in Swedish society and that resulted in new obligations by Swedish citizens which were now forced to have their intelligence measured by the government using new scientific methods.