Nordtveit, Bjorn

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Associate Professor, Department of Educational Policy, Research and Administration, College of Education
Last Name
Nordtveit
First Name
Bjorn
Discipline
Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research
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Introduction
I’m very pleased to take up the position as an Associate Professor at the Center for International Education at UMass. As my name suggests, I’m originally from Norway, but my high school and most of my university studies were done in France. Bjorn NordtveitIn particular, I received my MPhil in history of education, specializing on the Lao PDR, at the Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, Sorbonne. Subsequently, I started as a volunteer at UNESCO in Paris, after which I became a UN associate expert in Vientiane in 1994, and then a technical adviser monitoring non-formal education projects for UNESCO and UNDP in the Lao PDR.
In 1999, I took up duty as an Education Observer for the UN Security Council’s Oil for Food Program in Iraq. Between 2000 and 2006, I worked in Washington DC as a consultant on non-formal and adult literacy education for the Word Bank, and this work sent me to Burkina Faso, Chad, Guinea, Kenya, Mali, Morocco, Niger, Rwanda, Senegal and The Gambia. In 2005, I also worked in Rome for the World Food Program’s Hunger and Development Report and for UNESCO’s EFA Monitoring Report.
Since 2006, I have been based in Hong Kong, working as a Research Assistant Professor at the University of Hong Kong. During this period, I have been associated with the U.S. Department of Labor, for which I have conducted fieldwork on the topic of child labor and education. This work has enabled me to access new data in the field of teacher training and protection of vulnerable children in Benin, Cambodia, DR Congo, Guinea, Namibia and Swaziland. Also, a competitive grant from Hong Kong’s Research Grants Council enabled me to expand my research and publication in the field of project effectiveness through the study of China’s educational cooperation with Africa, using Egypt and Cameroon as case studies.
I believe my research work, teaching, and occasional fieldwork for international development organizations form a continuity in data gathering, teaching and learning, stimulating discussions with students and colleagues, as well as research and writing. I take a student-centered, constructivist approach to instruction, a methodology informed by both my formal teacher training at the University of Hong Kong and my academic research training. I see myself as a student at the same time as a teacher: I have had the opportunity to take teacher training classes at the University of Hong Kong, as well as specialized courses in topics relevant to my research, such as critical discourse analysis.
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    Development as a complex process of change: Conception and analysis of projects, programs and policies
    (2009-01-01) Nordtveit, Bjorn
    Development is often understood as a linear process of change towards Western modernity, a vision that is challenged by this paper, arguing that development efforts should rather be connected to the local stakeholders’ sense of their own development. Further, the paper contends that Complexity Theory is more effective than a linear theory of causality to analyze development and education efforts: hence, instead of studying the effects of separate development actions, the integrated factors leading to change should be considered. It is only after such analysis has been conducted, that questions of cost efficiency should be considered, using insights from the field of New Institutional Economics to avoid problems related to the stakeholders’ bounded rationality and asymmetric information leading to moral hazard.
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    Politics, guanxi and the search for objectivity: the intricacies of conducting educational research in Chinese contexts
    (2011-01-01) Nordtveit, Bjorn
    This article discusses how history, the cultural setting, and the political–ideological contexts may influence educational research in China. It seeks to demonstrate a dichotomy between official and popular discourses, and argues that there is a need for the researcher to understand and interpret the language style used in various interview settings and research publications in China. Further, it is contended that ideology and cultural influences push towards a ‘virtuous’ or socially acceptable understanding of reality. These ideological and cultural norms may also affect official research data and statistics. Further, the article seeks to demonstrate that for a researcher in China (whether Chinese or not) it is important to cultivate and make use of guanxi (connections), at the same time as understanding the methodological dangers and intricacies of using it.
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    “Reasonable Accommodations” or Education for All? The Case of Children Living With Disabilities in Cambodia
    (2011-01-01) Mak, Michelle; Nordtveit, Bjorn
    The authors examine the various challenges and barriers to education for children living with disabilities, primarily those living with deafness and blindness in Cambodia. Poverty and economic instability of families are key hindrances to educational opportunities for these children. Other barriers include lack of government ownership of educational programs for people with disabilities, poor governance and low accountability of the government, lack of funding and finances, limited human capacity and resources, and social discrimination and stigma. This poses the question as to what is reasonable accommodation to ensure that children living with disabilities can access schooling.
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    Western and Chinese development discourses: Education, growth and sustainability
    (2009-01-01) Nordtveit, Bjorn
    This article examines Western and Chinese discourses of education, sustainable growth and development. Education is increasingly considered as a means to fuel economic growth, especially since the 1980s, when conservative economic values became predominant in Western development thought. Despite a discourse on sustainability favouring ecologically sound and equitable growth, education is increasingly economy-centred. Through analysis of China’s market-based socialism, its development path, and the expansion of its Africa cooperation, this article seeks to demonstrate that the China-proposed development and education models are very similar to the Western growth-based development paradigm, although the discourse is different.
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    Family literacy
    (2005-01-01) Nordtveit, Bjorn
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    Towards post‐globalisation? On the hegemony of western education and development discourses
    (2010-01-01) Nordtveit, Bjorn
    This article argues that local discourses are narrowed through globalisation policies and questions whether one can characterise as ‘post‐globalisation’ a state of global and local unification in one capitalist discourse. Further, the article critically engages with such a state of the world, questioning the export of neoliberal western education and development models. Through a case study of a literacy project in Senegal, the article seeks to demonstrate that discourses at local and regional levels are similar to those at international levels, and that a capitalist–development path is widely accepted in many local and traditional societies.
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    Public-private partnerships and outsourcing
    (2005-01-01) Nordtveit, Bjorn