Astrid Marie Jorde Sandsør is a Professor at the Department of Special Needs Education, Faculty of Education, University of Oslo, and will serve as Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Education from January 2025-2029. She maintains strong affiliations with the Nordic Institute for Studies of Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU), where she has worked as a researcher, and serves as a principal investigator at CREATE - Centre for Research on Equality in Education. Her additional institutional roles include membership in the Young Academy of Norway, the Council of The Frisch Centre in Oslo, and affiliations with CESifo Research Network and the Institute for the Study of Labor (IZA). Dr. Sandsør earned her Doctorate in Economics from the University of Oslo in 2016 and her Master in Economics from the same institution in 2010. Her academic trajectory shows a consistent focus on empirical research in education economics, with early work examining small-group instruction effects and evolving toward comprehensive studies of educational inequality, early childhood interventions, and educational policy evaluation. Her research interests center on understanding and addressing educational inequality through rigorous empirical analysis. Sandsør investigates how socioeconomic background, genetic factors, and institutional arrangements interact to shape educational outcomes across the lifespan. Her work on universal early childhood education examines long-term effects on achievement gaps, while her research on admission systems analyzes mechanisms of access to higher education. She has made significant contributions to understanding gender differences in language learning, the impact of teacher density norms, and the effectiveness of interventions for at-risk students. Her methodological approach combines administrative data analysis, randomized field experiments, and causal inference techniques to produce policy-relevant findings. Analyzing her recent publication record reveals a strong focus on the intersection of genetics, environment, and educational outcomes, alongside persistent examination of socioeconomic inequality in education. Her work demonstrates increasing methodological sophistication, moving from descriptive analyses to experimental and quasi-experimental designs that establish causal relationships. The geographic focus remains predominantly Norwegian, leveraging the country's rich administrative data systems while contributing comparative insights to international literature on educational inequality and policy effectiveness. Through her position at NIFU and the University of Oslo, Sandsør has led numerous government-commissioned evaluations of educational policies, including assessments of teacher density norms, the teacher specialist scheme, and admission systems to higher education. Her research has directly informed Norwegian educational policy debates, particularly regarding equitable access to quality education and evidence-based interventions for reducing achievement gaps. She maintains active engagement with policymakers through expert testimony, commissioned reports, and public dissemination of research findings.
