Arctic Six Chair examines the future of Arctic teacher education

Björn Norlin, Senior Lecturer in Education and Associate professor of History and Education at Umeå University, has recently been appointed Arctic Six Chair. Over the coming years, he will work with colleagues in Umeå and other northern universities on a project aimed at investigating and improving the Sámi content in teacher education at universities in northern Sweden, Finland, and Norway. The project has the potential to transform how Sámi knowledge is conveyed, made visible, and integrated into the education systems in these countries, and create one or more models for other Arctic regions to follow.

Researcher with extensive experience in Arctic research

Björn Norlin is an engaged and experienced researcher with roots in Sundsvall. After studying and working as a teacher at University College Dublin and Mid Sweden University, he had the opportunity to complete his doctoral studies in history at Umeå University, where he defended his thesis in 2010. Since then, he has worked at Umeå University, where he now holds a permanent position at the Department of Education. Norlin has a long history of working with research related to the Arctic and has been involved in The Arctic Six since its establishment in 2017. His previous research on education in the Arctic and the development of courses with Arctic and Sámi themes has laid the foundation for the current Arctic Six project.

Improved teacher education leads to better educated teachers, which in turn benefits the whole society.

The project will investigate Sámi content in teacher education

The project led by Norlin aims to investigate how teacher education at universities in northern Norway, Sweden, and Finland includes Sámi themes. It is a comparative study that will analyse the programs at three levels: system level, institutional level, and individual level. At the system level, laws and guidelines will be reviewed, at the institutional level, the local conditions of the programs will be examined, and at the individual level, interviews with teacher educators will be conducted. The goal is to create a shared experience- and research-based dialogue on how teacher education can be organised and improved to better prepare teachers to teach about Sámi themes.

In November 2024, the Swedish Research Council granted Norlin and his research group 4.3 million SEK to begin this investigative work.

"It feels fantastic. Now we can really begin our work. The funds cover the possibility to start the work at northern universities, but the dream would of course be to cover an even larger area in the future."

He continues, saying that in the future, not only northern Sweden, Norway, and Finland, but the entire Arctic (areas in Canada and the USA as well as Greenland and Russia), could benefit from the insights and methods developed through the project, and vice versa.

"It is of course an exchange, and we are very keen to learn from the knowledge and experiences of other parts of the world," he says.

Hopes to contribute new knowledge and improved teacher education

Norlin hopes that the project will not only lead to joint publications and a broadened network of teacher educators and researchers at northern universities, but also to shared ideas on how to work together with knowledge internationally and across borders. He also hopes that the project will provide better concrete knowledge about how teacher educators work with Sámi issues in practice and which methods seem to work best.

"Improved teacher education leads to better educated teachers, which in turn benefits the whole society. Teacher education is one of the most important educations we have, and it is our responsibility as researchers and teacher educators to help develop it. Then, of course, it is up to individual teachers to, based on the conditions given, use the knowledge they gain from the education in the best possible way," says Norlin.

With his experience in educational research and collaborations in the Arctic, Björn Norlin can create conditions for cooperation between teacher education programs in different countries, which allows the project to contribute to a more inclusive and informed world.