The development of sámi children’s right to learn sámi in the Russian school context

Abstract

In this chapter, we show how the provisions of international law concerning Indigenous children’s right to learn their mother tongue in school have evolved over time and how the provisions of the Russian national legislation comply with international law. In the light of this framework, we present the historic trajectory of Sámi education at the Lovozero School, from the end of the 1800s to the organizational and attitudinal breaking point experienced during the school year of 2016–2017. Although the Russian legislation has come to contain the elements of the right in focus, we claim that the realization of this right has been, and still is, problematic. A further analysis indicates a recent negative change of the curricular contents, and of the interest of the Sámi learners to attend the Sámi language lessons. This change coincides with a shift from language-oriented teaching into history and culture-oriented program at the school, as well as with negative changes in the speaker demography.