Online workshop: Árran - The achievements, advancement and recognition of Sámi education

Hanna Helander leads the pilot project on distance education in the Sámi languages in the municipality of Utsjoki. She is also a researcher at the University of Lapland on the ADVOST-research project. She holds a M.Phil. and has worked as a Finnish and literature teacher. Currently she is a doctoral student at the University of Oulu and finalizing her dissertation which focuses on Sámi storytelling and upbringing. She is interested in developing Sámi language education.

Professor Jahnke is Ngāti Kahungungu, Ngai Tahu, Ngāti Toa Rangatira and Ngāti Hine. She is Professor of Maori and Indigenous Education in Te Pūtahi a Toi, Director Te Mata o Te Tau: The Academy for Māori Research and Scholarship and Director of Toi Kura Centre for Maori & Indigenous Education at Massey University.She has a PhD in Māori Studies and a Master’s in Education. Professor Jahnke and her team partnered with Te Rūnanganui o Ngā kura Kaupapa Māori (TRNKKM) to conceptualize and develop the only university based Maori language immersion Initial Teacher Education programmes in Aotearoa New Zealand. Her research expertise and interests include Māori and Indigenous Education, tribal development, Ethics of knowledge production in indigenous research, kaupapa Māori research.

Asbjørn Kolberg is associate professor of Nordic Languages and Literature at the Faculty of Education, Nord University. He also works as a coordinator of the university’s South and Lule Saami Teacher Education Programmes. Kolberg's research interests include children’s literature in a contemporary and historical perspective, critical text analysis, representations of indigenous people in literature and media and South Saami history, language and culture.

Rauna Kuokkanen is a Sámi woman and research professor of Arctic Indigenous Studies at the University of Lapland (Finland) and adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. She is the author of three books, the most recent being the award-winning Restructuring Relations: Indigenous Self-Determination, Governance and Gender (Oxford University Press, 2019). Dr. Kuokkanen’s research focuses on comparative Indigenous politics, Indigenous feminist theory, governance, law and Nordic settler colonialism. Currently she leads the Siida School project, a community driven, collaborative project by Sámi scholars, artists and activists seeking to reclaim and reconstruct Sámi governance practices and principles for today’s needs.

Inker-Anni Linkola-Aikio works in the Sámi Archives since 2014. She has a Master degree in Finno-Ugric linguistics from the University of Helsinki 1996 and Ph.D. from the Faculty of Education in the University of Lapland 2014. Her Ph.D research title was The Sámi School’s Linguistic Landscape: An ethnographical study on the Sámi language in an upper secondary education institute. During 2017–2019 she worked as an Associate Professor in Sámi University of Applied Sciences (Norway). Her current research interests are: linguistic landscape, research ethics, Sámi educational history, language policy in Sámi education.

Marja-Liisa Olthuis is a senior university lecturer at University of Oulu, Finland. Her major interests are the Saami languages, Finnish, language revitalization, lexicology, second/foreign language teaching, translation studies and language technology.

Annika Pasanen has recently started as a professor of Sámi sociolinguistics at the Sámi allaskuvla, Sámi University of Applied Sciences. She has a Ph.D. degree in Finno-Ugric studies, and the revitalization of Inari Sámi language is the topic of her Ph.D. dissertation. She has researched and participated in revitalization activities among several Indigenous and minority peoples especially in the Sápmi and the Arctic regions of Russia. She is originally from Central Finland, lives in Inari and speaks Inari and North Sámi languages.

Rauna Rahko-Ravantti is an associate professor at the Sámi allaskuvla, Norway. She has a doctorate in 2016 from the University of Lapland. Her dissertation concerned the interviews of Sámi teachers and ideas that they expressed about their work at primary schools. The thesis presents philosophically the four doors of Sámi education that can be used as an analysis frame in research and practical development of Sámi education. Her work in Sámi allaskuvla focuses on the sámi teacher education program education studies coordination and teaching tasks.

Photo: Vesa Toppari / Yle Sápmi

Erika Sarivaara has a PhD in education and she holds a Title of Adjunct Professor (language and culture education) at the Faculty of Educational Sciences at the University of Helsinki. She has a long-trem teaching experience and research background in indigenous educational issues. She is currently interested in threaten language didactics and indigenizing the teacher education.

Rauni Äärelä-Vihriälä is an Associate Professor at the Sámi allaskuvla, Guovdageaidnu, Norway. She is a Doctor of Education (2016 University of Lapland). Her PhD thesis concerns Sámi language nest pedagogy. Her current work at the Sámi allaskuvla focuses on the Sámi teacher education. Her research interest is in the Sámi eductional research field focusing on Sámi language immersion.