Indigenous peoples’ education has aroused wide international interest. This new book is aimed at international audience and contributes to the research on indigenous and multicultural education and their special features by introducing the educational position and developmental challenges of teaching among the Sámi, the only indigenous people of the European Union. How to secure educational equality of indigenous students and those speaking minority languages? How to organize teaching so that it strengthens and ensures the future of the Sámi language and culture? How to communally support teachers’, educators’, and teacher educators’ work in the multicultural situations of the North? These are among those questions Keskitalo, Määttä, and Uusiautti discuss in their book. During the last few years, they have collaborated and published numerous research articles about Sámi pedagogy.

The book is divided into five main chapters. The first chapter introduces the history of Sámi education. It has been burdened with colonization and otherness, and the purpose has been to assimilate the Sámi culturally and linguistically into the mainstream culture. In addition, the book introduces Sámi research and methods, especially ethical questions of school research. The essential contents of the book are also the cultural and linguistic special features of Sámi education, and teaching models that are based on these premises. Moreover, tools for changing and developing teaching are covered in the book. The authors bring out how the Sámi language can form the core of teaching, as educational development from this point of view still seems to be in its infancy in Finland. The fifth chapter discusses the model of the future Sámi education – a dream school that corresponds to experts’ and professionals’ perceptions of the recognized position of multicultural Sámi education.

Keskitalo, Määttä, and Uusiautti’s book “Sámi Education” is a national and international pioneering work. It contributes to the development of the current school in a way that appreciates Sámi pedagogy also in practical educational solutions all the way from early education to adult education. Authors want to start discussing about the position of Sámi pupils and Sámi education, have influence on educational decision making, strengthen the research on Sámi pedagogy, and further active listening of the active providers of Sámi education. The collaboration of organizers, developers, researchers, and decision-makers of education has to be improved in Finland: it is especially topical now when the new reform of core curriculum is prepared in 2016.

ULapland/Communication/RJ