Today: Unproblematic Relationships among the Schools, Children, and Families?
In the defensive actions of ‘star pupils’, in criticisms from Odd Mathis H?tta and other activists, in Sami parents demanding an equally good education for their own children, and in the continuous presence of children coming to school and simply being Sami because that was what their parents passed on to them, Sami language and culture remained a presence.
Eventually, new language- and culture-politics were born. There are differences among the countries examined and within them, in particular between areas that belong to what has been defined as ‘Sami linguistic areas’ or ‘Sami regions’ and the rest. It has nevertheless been acknowledged (in theory if not always in practice) that Sami children have the right to their mother tongue and culture. With Sami parliaments in all three countries, the Sami are also in a position to define what they want schools to transmit, even if they are not in a position to decide on all issues. The question is not if the schools shall transmit Sami language and culture but how. A further issue concerns how schools should overcome the inherent difficulty of establishing and maintaining an educational system for indigenous children on indigenous grounds that complies with the intentions of national school acts while also preparing the children for participation on an equal footing in the majority society.The Sami child must have competences that work in both minority and majority environments. This makes for a demanding childhood and for demands on the school that have turned out to be not altogether easy to meet. This also applies to Norway, where a separate Sami curriculum was introduced in 1997, followed by a new reform in 2006 (Solstad, Nygard, and Solstad 2012). Sami literature on schooling and pedagogical issues testifies to there still being problems to resolve before a ‘culturally sensitive teaching (…) based on the Sami premises’ is realised.
Researchers emphasise in particular the need to mediate between formal and informal learning and to pay more attention to ‘the Sami conceptions of space and place and of time and knowledge’ (Keskitalo and Määttä 2011, 112, 117). In looking at the relationships among the schools, the families, and local society, though, a Norwegian evaluation report demonstrates that schools in northern Sami areas are not utilising parents’ and local societies’ cultural competence, despite such competences being important in strengthening Sami identity and traditional values (Solstad, Nygard, and Solstad 2012, 133).The Swedish Sami Parliament for its part has demanded to take over the responsibilities for the education of Sami children to eliminate structural discrimination, especially of children outside the administrative area for Sami language (Sametinget.se). More autonomy by help of a special Sami curriculum has also been proposed for Sami schools in Finland (Määttä, Keskitalo, and Uusiautti 2013, 443–453). A key problem in Finland, as was noted by the Swedish Sami Parliament, is that many children outside the defined Sami regions do not learn their language, traditions, or history (Sametinget.se).
Sami language, culture, society, and traditional knowledge are the main keywords used by the Norwegian Sami Parliament to describe what schools should offer Sami children. Otherwise, schools are given the role they commonly have in the Nordic societies: they represent an institution vital to the development of society (Sametinget.no). However, the emphasis is somewhat different since the importance of international law is stressed, for example. It is acknowledged, though, that common school subjects for all children are important, as well as the values that primary education in these countries are based on—namely, democracy, equality, and respect. They are all explained so that they frame the situation of Sami children particularly well—for example, by emphasising the need for Sami children to learn about Sami history, culture, and society.
This includes learning about former assimilation policies. This knowledge is vital to understanding the position of the Sami today, understanding why there are many Sami who do not speak Sami languages, and understanding why there is still pain connected to experiences at schools and other institutions. By learning about history, the children can learn to be proud of their culture, which is clearly important in a minority population.The Norwegian Sami Parliament, as well as other agents ranging from individuals to researchers, argue that schools must encourage values attached to kinship and the traditional Sami way of raising children. Edel H?tta Eriksen, herself a Sami teacher in the days of assimilation and afterwards and a member of the Norwegian ‘Value Commission’ in 1998, singled out those values. She has also emphasised that transfers should pass from Sami society to the majority (Lund 1998):
To me, family values and kinship take centre stage. I believe the traditional way of raising children contains values from which others can learn. All family members participated in raising the children, and the children took part in the lives of the adults. From childhood on, we learnt to manage, and I remember how proud I was when I was responsible for starting a fire and making coffee when I was five or six years old.
A recent study also reported that ‘family/kinship attachment’ is the most important single factor in Sami identity (Selle, Semb, and Stromsnes 2013, 723), while ‘managing’ is something of a leitmotif in literature on Sami childrearing in Norway; at least to some extent, this philosophy is incorporated into kindergartens in particular but also into schools.
Traditional knowledge is another important area, and one aspect of such knowledge involves knowing about nature. In Finland in the 1970s, it became common to represent the Sami as a people of nature. At that time, it was increasingly emphasised that indigenous peoples traditionally lived according to principles of sustainability and practiced ‘ecologically sound resource use’, in contrast to the over-exploitation represented by Western society (Nyyssonen 2007, 231 ff).
Today, the connection between nature and Sami traditions is a common trope in both self-representations and external representations of the Sami (Valkonen and Valkonen 2014). In a recent survey conducted in Norway, the relationship with nature and the use of natural resources also figured among the factors that Sami people used to constitute their own Sami identity. Among Sami who had not registered on the electoral roll for the Sami Parliament, ‘leisure-time use of natural resources’ was rated as the second most important factor, after ‘family/kinship attachment’(Selle, Semb, and Stromsnes 2013). A Finnish study indicated that nature is the most important factor for Sami living outside the Sami region (Keskitalo and Määttä 2011, 114).Given this background, it comes as no surprise that a connection to nature is emphasised in recent pedagogical research as an issue requiring more attention in Sami schools and that nature is connected to a ‘Sami way of life’:
If young people are to learn the Sami way of life and the tasks it involves, the young need to participate in the activities of the nature-based economy, although these activities are not determined by the holiday schedule of the school.
(Keskitalo and Määttä 2011, 114)
However, recent research indicates that nature is of particular value in father-son relationships: Sami fathers want their sons to learn to connect with nature in the same way as themselves, that is, to learn to fish, hunt, collect firewood, and pick berries (Boine 2007). Former generations learnt these skills at home, from family and local society, but today they are framed as knowledge for schools to convey. The reason for this is probably that schooling takes up a lot of time and that the school teaches Sami values and contributes to Sami identity building. In addition, the quest for traditional cultural knowledge rests upon the uncontested acknowledgement that Sami children should be taught in a Sami language.