How to Make the Small Indigenous Cultures Bloom? Special Traits of Sámi Pedagogy in Finland

Abstract

This article discusses smallness from the point of view of the Sámi, an indigenous people of the Arctic, and describes today's Sámi education in Finland, the factors that have affected its formation and the challenges in strengthening it. The purpose of the article is to provide ideas to develop Sámi education and encourage discovering methods that emanate from indigenous peoples' own cultural premises. This article is based on our previous studies and data that we further analyzed into theoretical tools. Here, we discuss what it would mean to the Sámi to have a sovereign educational system. The challenges are viewed especially from the point of view of the Sámi being a small assemblage that inhabits four countries. In The Language Garden Analogy, Ofelia García (2011) uses powerful words to portray language planning and refers to " sustainable languaging " : language planning must maintain a future-orientation, becoming dynamically situated in social context. Language diversity makes for a richer, more interesting, and more colorful world. Small (indigenous) languages need careful language planning and protection to preserve linguistic diversity in the world. Sometimes radical action may be taken to make small cultures and languages bloom (Garcia, 2011). In this article, we present a small indigenous population as adding cultural and linguistic diversity and address issues associated with smallness as experienced by those indigenous populations when it comes to education. We will present the challenging historical-cultural background of the Sámi followed by a description of the present educational situation of the Sámi people. Then, we . Finally , we the a small from (educational) sovereignty . Wewilldiscusswhatitmeansforasmallindigenouspopulationtobeconsidereda'smallassemblage'–andhowthisviewpointcouldcontributetothediscussionofchallengesthatindigenouspeoplesface.ThisarticleisbasedonourpreviousstudiesonSámieducationinNorwayandFinland(seeKeskitalo2010;Keskitalo&Määttä,2011,2012;Keskitalo,Määttä,&Uusiautti,2011a,2011b,2012)thatisnowexpandedthroughthetheoreticalanalysisontheSámiasasmallassemblage.Inthisstudy,wegroundouranalysisonthedatafromFinland.The–2008:itaoftheFinnishcorecurriculumforcomprehensiveeducationandinterviewsamongtenteachers.TheobjectivewastounderstandandpresentthestateofSámieducationinFinland.OurlateststudywasconductedamongteachersfromtheschoolsanddaycarecentersoftheSámiDomicileArea,localschoolauthoritiesandrepresentativesoftheFinnishandNorwegianSámiParliamentsandhighereducation(n=64,includingpeoplefromallofthesegroups)whoparticipatedintheSámiPedagogyConferencein2011andwereaskedtosharetheirexperiencesofSámieducation.