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Language, Citizenship, and Sámi Education in the Nordic North, 1900-1940

Otso Kortekangas author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:McGill-Queen's University Press

Published:17th Mar '21

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Language, Citizenship, and Sámi Education in the Nordic North, 1900-1940 cover

What happened to Nordic ideals of equal citizenship when faced with the needs of minority groups such as the indigenous Sámi?

Timely in its focus on educational policies in multiethnic societies, Otso Kortekangas examines how educational policies affected the Sámi people residing in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. The book provides essential information on the relationship between large-scale government policies and indigenous peoples.

In the making of the modern Nordic states in the first half of the twentieth century, elementary education was paramount in creating a notion of citizenship that was universal and equal for all citizens. Yet these elementary education policies ignored, in most cases, the language, culture, wishes, and needs of minorities such as the indigenous Sámi.

Presenting the Sámi as an active, transnational population in early twentieth-century northern Europe, Otso Kortekangas examines how educational policies affected the Sámi people residing in the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, and Finland. In this detailed study, Kortekangas explores what the arguments were for the lack of Sámi language in schools, how Sámi teachers have promoted the use of their mother tongue within the school systems, and how the history of the Sámi compares to other indigenous and minority populations globally.

Timely in its focus on educational policies in multiethnic societies, and ambitious in its scope, the book provides essential information for educators, policy-makers, and academics, as well as anyone interested in the history of education, and the relationship between large-scale government policies and indigenous peoples.

“[This book] grapples with conditions across the board in three neighbouring countries, allowing for useful comparative perspectives on their response to difference in education. Well written and easy to digest, the book combines a big-picture account with an in-depth engagement with the positions taken by Sámi teachers, who often inhabited the roles of debaters and activists. [It] will be valuable for the historical understanding of the dynamics that have impacted the peoples indigenous to the Nordic north and beyond.” *University of Toronto Quarterly *

ISBN: 9780228005681

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

184 pages