Decolonizing Indigenous teaching: Renewing actions through a Critical Utopian Action Research framework

Abstract

This article describes experiences formed in connection with a case study in Sámi schools. The Sámi people live in the northern part of the North Calotte region and among the world’s Indigenous peoples. The development of culture-based education aims to diminish the dominance of the national curricula. The aim of this article is to understand factors that influence teachers’ views and how teachers experience culture-based education in terms of a decolonizing process. The case study was conducted in a Critical Utopian Action Research framework with future workshops. The future workshops began as collaborative self-criticism and dreaming of education and then moved to the implementation of Indigenous culture-based teaching activities in local teaching practices. The teachers expressed that they felt trapped between demands made by the national curricula and their desire to implement culture-based teaching, but they nevertheless had many ideas for themes via which culture could be linked to teaching. Through knowledge exchange between the participants in the case study, the teachers ‘rediscovered’ knowledge and reinterpreted that knowledge in a teaching setting. The teachers’ autonomy was strengthened and the teachers’ active efforts empowered them.

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