Ett nationellt metasystem för utbildning och fostran i Tornedalen

Abstract

A national metasystem for education and fostering in TornedalenA national interacting metasystem of national education and fostering developed in the Finnish speaking region Tornedalen in northern Sweden from the late 19th century to the 1950s. It was not formally agreed as a deliberate education system, but was more of a tacit understanding of a common nationalistic goal within different educational institutions such as primary schools, the residential industrial schools [arbetsstugor], the folk high-schools and the different forms of explicit military education. The aim was to help the poor region economically, to spread the Swedish language and culture in the area, to break the isolation of the region through education and to integrate this geopolitically sensitive border region into the nation. The integrative phase of Swedish nationalism was a common denominator. Leading persons in the educational and fostering activities were many times the same persons. There was a consensus over party lines about the need of acculturation and assimilation of the Tornedalians. The school, the nation and the family was regarded as central concepts in the fostering of the minority into Swedish citizens. By regarding the educations in Tornealen as a metasystem of ideological influences you get an imagination of the ideological power single educations gets when interconnected as a system.

”Språket fick jag inte med mig som liten”. Unga meänkielibrukares samtal om språkbevarande på sociala medier

“…Meänkielibrukare har länge varit föremål för stigmatisering och assimilationstryck från det svenska majoritetssamhället. Den svenska "konformistiska nationalistiska språkpolitiken" hade som mål att fostra tornedalingar, kväner och lantalaiset till moderna svenska medborgare utifrån en föreställning om svensk kultur och det svenska språ-ket som enande krafter (Elenius 2014). Försvenskningsprocessen av tornedalingar, kväner och lantalaiset genomfördes med hjälp av utbildningsväsendet, genom svenskspråkiga folkskolor och arbetsstugor där de meänkielitalande barnen skulle lära sig svenska.…”

Tornedalian Teachers’ and Principals’ in the Swedish Education System: Exploring Decolonial Pockets in the Aftermaths of ‘Swedification’

“…Expressions of Tornedalian language and culture were seen as threats to nationalist narratives, which portrayed Sweden as a homogeneous country solely populated by a Nordic race (Persson, 2018). In this colonial process, the education system was used as a tool to correct the Tornedalians' behaviour and lifestyle (Elenius, 2014). Following the Royal Charter on public education, Meänkieli was prohibited as a school subject in the 1880s, a ban that lasted until 1950.…”

“…The decision to deploy decolonial theories in this article stems from a need to critically examine modern-day Tornedalian prerequisites to practise their minority group status to the fullest, through the integration of Tornedalian language and knowledge in a Swedish context, such as school. The education system was one of the primary mechanisms by which the Swedification policy's implementation was made possible (Elenius, 2014); thus, decolonial thinking offers tools with which to scrutinise its consequences for present-day Tornedalians, and thus allows a critical outlook on Swedish language and culture's dominance within the education system (Laakso, Sarhimaa, Spiliopoulou Åkermark, & Toivanen, 2016). Moreover, this theoretical lens encourages perspectives that significantly involve acknowledging the local and the value of difference (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018).…”

“…Despite years of colonial experiences, as well as challenging contemporary obstacles designed to generate obedience under the Swedish/Western educational paradigm (Elenius, 2014;Persson, 2018), Meänkieli-based cultural knowledge (Lainio & Wande, 2015) is alive and available, embodied in the staff and pupils of Tornedalian schools. In decolonial thinking there lies an opposing potential, or ways of questioning that which is taken as normal and in accordance with structures of domination (Mignolo & Walsh, 2018).…”

Samernas folkhögskola och de samiska språken 1942–1990

“…Parallellt med ideal om bildning fanns tanken att folkhögskolan skulle vara av nytta för fortsatta 4 David Sjögren, Den säkra zonen: motiv, åtgärdsförslag och verksamhet i den särskiljande utbildningspolitiken för inhemska minoriteter 1913-1962(Umeå: Umeå universitet, 2010, 63f. 5 Elenius (2014), 74. 6 Hans Burgman, "Folkhögskolan och den pedagogiska utvecklingen 1968-1918, " i Svensk folkhögskola 100 år, del 3, red.…”