Toward the Practical Framework of Sámi Education

Aims: The challenge of the Sámi School is that the western school culture dominates teaching, and socializes the Sámi pupils into the dominant society. The aim of this article is to introduce a practical framework for Sámi education which would direct teaching arrangements and comprehensive pedagogy drawn from the Sámi people’s own starting points.
Study design: School ethnography.
Place and Duration of Study: Sámi and Norwegian speaking classes in six Sámi schools in Norway between 2001 and 2007.
Methodology: The research material comprised observations and research diary on education, interviews and questionnaires of teachers (N=108), entries in the research journal, and school documents such as annual plans and curricula.
Results: Education at Sámi schools is affected by outer historical-cultural foundation and background factors, and on the other hand, the inner special features of developing Sámi education.
Conclusion: The framework introduced in this article aims at filling a gap – to create a model that is based on an independent Sámi School system.