An Educational Comparison of Selected Groups of Norwegian Saami and North Amerindians

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An Educational Comparison of Selected Groups of Norwegian Saami and North Amerindians Loyola University Chicago Loyola eCommons Dissertations Theses and Dissertations 1988 An Educational Comparison of Selected Groups of Norwegian Saami and North Amerindians Grete Roland Loyola University Chicago Follow this and additional works at: https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss Part of the Education Commons Recommended Citation Roland, Grete, "An Educational Comparison of Selected Groups of Norwegian Saami and North Amerindians" (1988). Dissertations. 2664. https://ecommons.luc.edu/luc_diss/2664 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses and Dissertations at Loyola eCommons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Loyola eCommons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License. Copyright © 1988 Grete Roland AN EDUCATIONAL COMPARISON OF SELECTED GROUPS OF NORWEGIAN SAAMI AND NORTH AMERINDIANS By Grete Roland A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Loyola University of Chicago in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy June 1988 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The writer would like to thank the members of the dissertation committee: Professor Gerald L. Gutek, Chairman of the Committee; Professor John M. Wozniak; Professor Steven I. Miller; and Professor Joan K. Smith. Their suggestions and refinements of the text were invaluable. Special indebtedness is due Professor John M. Wozniak for many years of inspirational instruction and encouragement. For the field research at NAES College in Chicago, the author is grateful to Dr. Armin Beck, Academic Dean, and to the staff for their cooperation and assistance. For the field research in Norway, Bjoern Aarseth, head of the Saami Section at the Norwegian Folk Museum in Oslo, must be thanked for his generous provision of books and information on the Saami in addition to his comments on the Saami text. The author also wishes to acknowledge in gratitude Jan H. Keskitalo, Liv Oestmo, Odd M. Haetta, and Tore M. Berg in Alta, Finnmark as well as the staffs of the Saami Department of Alta Teachers' College and of the Nordic Saami Institute in Kautokeino. For the latter, Elina Helander and Asta Balto are appreciated for their insights and provision of materials. Finally, the author thanks Gerd Borthen, for providing home and companionship in Norway. Ivar Roland and Ana Maria Savitzky should be mentioned for similar support in the United States. The author extends apologies to other individuals not mentioned for their assistance. ii VITA The author, Grete Roland, is the daughter of Ingrid J. Schoening and Sverre Roland. She was born on 15 September 1937 in Chicago, Illi­ nois in a Norwegian ethnic neighborhood. Her elementary and secondary education was obtained in Chicago public schools, except for one year in Norway. She graduated from Tuley High School in 1955 and attended Northwestern University until 1958 when she received the B.S. degree through the School of Speech. She majored in Theatre Arts and English and actively participated in stage produc­ tions. She pursued the studies of history, anthropology, psychology, and French as well. From 1959 to 1964, she lived in Norway, Germany, and Turkey. In Norway, she studied language and literature at the University of Oslo. At Goethe Institute in Brilon Stadt and at the University of Munich, Germany, she studied German language, philology, and literature. Also in Munich, she taught English (EFL) at the Cambridge Institute. In 1963-64 she taught English (EFL) at Amerikan Lisan ve Dersanesi, a language and arts academy in Istanbul, Turkey and took Turkish instruction privately. She was an instructor of English as a Second Language, English, and Speech at Central YMCA Community College in Chicago from 1965 to 1981. In 1981 she helped to bring its English Language Institute to MacCormac College where she remained as an instructor until 1987. iii In the meantime, she was awarded a Sabbatical Leave of Absence to pursue Linguistics at Illinois Institute of Technology and received the M.S. degree in Linguistics in 1971. In 1978 she graduated from Loyola University of Chicago with the M.S. degree in Multicultural Education. She continued her studies in the Comparative-International Education program for the Doctor of Philosophy degree. In 1981 she studied Scandinavian Education, Comparative-International Education Systems, and Special Education at the University of Oslo's International SUlDjler School. For her dissertation, she conducted field research in Chicago, Illinois from 1985 to 1987 and in Finnmark and Oslo, Norway in 1987-88. The author translated and interpreted the Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian sources used in the Ph.D. dissertation. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ii VITA iii INTRODUCTION 1 Chapter I. THE SAAMI PEOPLE: ORIGIN, CULTURE, AND LOSS: A PREHISTORIC AND HISTORICAL OVERVIEW 11 Saami Origin and Habitation . 13 Saami Cultural Groups, Land, and Foreign Domination 18 Saami Culture and Domination by Church and Law 30 Lutheran Conversion of the Saami . 36 Conflict over Borders, Laestadianism, and Laws 41 Norwegian Nationalism: Church and School Assimilatory Policies . 48 II. SAAMI CULTURAL RETRIEVAL: INTERNATIONAL, INTER-NORDIC, AND NORWEGIAN PERSPECTIVES ........ 66 International Perspectives 66 Inter-Nordic Perspectives ............... 75 The Norwegian Government 94 III. NORWEGIAN SAAMI HIGHER EDUCATION IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: ORGANIZATIONS AND DEMOCRATIZATION 110 Norwegian Saami Organizations . 113 Norwegian Saami Education . 123 Saami Higher Education . 131 The Saami Department of Alta Teachers' College .... 152 The Future of Saami Higher Education 162 Summary . 176 IV. AMERINDIANS IN THE UNITED STATES: AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW OF CULTURAL LOSS AND RETRIEVAL 180 Amerindians and the United States 183 Amerindian Education and Government Reforms 190 Amerindian Self-Determination . .. 203 V. NAES COLLEGE IN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE: URBANIZATION AND ORGANIZATION 218 An Overview of Urbanization 219 Chicago Amerindian Organizations and their Role in Cultural Identity .......... 223 Higher Education and the Origin of NAES College 233 NAES College's Early Academic Program . 239 Accreditation and Expansion of NAES College ...... 242 VI. NAES COLLEGE IN RECENT TIMES: THE NAES SITES, CHICAGO STAFF, AND AMERINDIAN LEADERSHIP ... 249 The NAES Sites . 252 The NAES College Student Body . 263 NAES College: Admissions, Academic Programs, and Support Services . 267 Interviews with the NAES Staff . 274 The NAES National Office and Leadership 298 Summary . 301 CONCLUSION 304 Recommendations for Further Research 323 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY 327 APPENDIX A 338 APPENDIX B 341 INTRODUCTION This study in comparative education examines northern indigenous peoples, in Norway and portions of the United States, who have used higher education for their cultural preservation and development. The study also provides a perspective on the modern trend of indigenous peoples toward self-initiative and self-determination. To gain rights to traditional territories and free enjoyment of culture and language, their efforts have entailed the cooperation of numerous groups at international, national, and local levels. They achieved some success in the 1970s and 1980s. Certain groups of Saami and Amerindians are identified, and their respective institutions of higher education are described and compared as instrumental toward reaching their goals. The focus of this study is on two higher educational institutions: Alta Teachers' College, especially the Saami Department, in Finnmark, Norway and its relationship to the development of an autonomous Nor­ wegian Saami university; and NAES College (Native American Educational Services, Inc.) in Chicago, Illinois (the United States) along with its affiliations. Historical-documentary and qualitative interview methods have been employed to describe and interpret the evolving relationship between northern Europeans, Euroamericans, and indigenous peoples. Several technicalities of translation from the Norwegian, Dan­ ish, and Swedish orthographical styles to that of American-English used by the author need clarification. The Norwegian and Swedish umlauts 1 2 have been anglicized. For example, the Norwegian umlauts 0 a re have been been changed to "oe aa ae" respectively. In the Norwegian style of writing, a book and or periodical title begins with a capital letter but is followed by words with small letters. The author has faithfully footnoted according to the style clearly given in the original source; otherwise, the American style is used. Certain Norwegian and Saami terms have been included (and explained in English) with respect to an international and/or internationally minded readership. Their inclusion helps to avoid the repetition of explanations as well as to remind the reader of the fact that special concepts and terms often do not have exact equivalents in another language. The pronunciation of these terms are generally similar to that of German and other Inda-European lan- guages, although Saami or Lappish does not belong to this language family. For example, the above umlauts roughly correspond to the Eng- English: "u(r) aw a II as in the pronunciation of the words "purse," ' "pawn," and "pan." The Norwegian vowel sound "y" is a combination of the English consonant sound "y" and vowel sound "u(r)." The remaining vowel sounds, however, generally follow the pronunciation of
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