Teacher Education for Social Justice and Diversity

Written by Pigga Keskitalo, University of Lapland, Faculty of Education Árran – The Achievements, Advancement and Recognition of Saami Education two-day workshop was held 15–16 April 2021 online and hosted by the University of Lapland. It gathered over 130 registered participants, which tells us that Saami education is a topic that interests many internationally and in Pan-Saami areas. More and more, there are obligations to different stakeholders to organise Saami education at different levels, and there is an urgent call for these actions as well. The Saami concept Árran refers to the application of the concept that education concerns human actions and that those actions aim to develop learners—specifically children’s and youths’ learning terms—so that they have a strong foundation from which to learn, develop and produce research knowledge. Educators are always thinking about how to develop, solve and produce knowledge about practical questions in education so that it is possibl...

Written by Maija Simonen. In 1998, 49 European countries agreed to create a 3-year cycle higher education system with uniform qualifications, which they called the Bologna Process. The purpose of the Bologna Process is to create a European higher education area, and standards and guidelines have been created to ensure that higher education is equal in all European countries (European University Association, 2021). In addition, the European Commission has made common principles for teacher competences and qualifications, which state that teachers should be well-qualified professionals who have graduated from a higher education institution (European Commission, 2021). My thesis explored how teacher competences can be seen in the curricula of teacher education programmes by analysing these curricula from two Finnish universities (the University of Lapland [UoL] and the University of Oulu [UoO]), two Swedish universities (Umeå University [UU] and Luleå University of Technology [LUT]) and o...

Written by: Anne-Mette Bjøru – The Arctic University of Norway, Alta (anne.m.bjoru@uit.no) The aim of this blog Is twofold: to show some aspects of the Norwegian system of Education concerning Sámi, and to share a good reading experience which some of you might find interesting. I think the novel presented here is useful as classroom material, but it is a great read also for those who do not teach – first and foremost to learn about the Sámi and Sápmi. Photo: ark.no Short summary of In between worlds Two teenagers, Sanne and Lemme, disappear one evening on their way home from the dirt bike track. Lemme’s bike gets stuck on a rock in the little woods they pass through, and they are attacked by a screaming creature – a myling – that circles around them. Then everything goes black. After, they find themselves in a strange place – the ulda-world – where they have changed into reindeer, and are surrounded by black clouds – the chapadat. They are chased by reindeer herders and wolves, tr...