When Wife Meets Mother: Norwegian School Libraries

This article explores various reasons for the lack of school library services in Norwegian primary schools. The basic thesis is that libraries and primary schools have developed differently despite sharing common origins from the European Age of Enlightenment. Libraries and library work can be seen as belonging to a masculine metaphor, primary schools and teaching can be seen as belonging to a feminine metaphor. These metaphors reflect traditions and attitudes that affect everything from basic democratic ideologies to ways in which we relate to classroom space and library space, as well as the ways in which teachers and librarians organize and advocate for working conditions. This causes conflicts in defining the role of the teacher-librarian and the school library in Norwegian primary schools.

To “Move, Surprise, and Thrill”: Thirty Years of Promoting Cultural Diversity in Norwegian School Concerts

This chapter examines how a politics of cultural diversity was implemented over a 30-year period in a Norwegian school concert program run by Concerts Norway. Departing from a historical overview, the chapter outlines the shifting agendas, values, and visions of diversity that governed this ambitious cultural effort. A central aim is to examine the ideological positions that influenced the program and the political and educational debates surrounding it. The concert program is discussed with respect to cultural diversity and anti-racism, democracy, tradition, hybridity, and the tensions between educational and artwork-based paradigms. Based on theorizations of cultural difference, the chapter shows how promoting music to children has been understood as an important part of shaping societal attitudes and laying the grounds for an anti-oppressive education. Critical issues regarding representation, influence, and power in the staging of music involving immigrant performers are raised. The chapter relates the concert programs to the political frames and ideals of the nation-state by illustrating how international cooperation effectively made the concert programs a part of Norwegian foreign policy. It points out how changing government policies had a profound impact on programs promoting cultural diversity, eventually leading to their termination as a national cultural strategy.

Being inclusive when talking about diversity

This paper explores how discourses of national identity are managed in one of Norway’s core institutions – the educational system. As Norway changed into a multi-ethnic society, classrooms became a central arena for individuals with different religious and ethnic backgrounds to meet. How boundaries of ‘Norwegianness’ are managed in the classroom is therefore of importance. Based on a thematic analysis of observations of classroom lessons and interviews with teachers in schools in Oslo, I argue that teachers navigate between several different yet overlapping discourses of 'being Norwegian'. Using the theoretical framework of bright and blurred boundaries and different understandings of ‘Norwegianness’, I show how teachers manage different discourses rooted in citizenship, cultural traditions, values, ethnic boundaries or Whiteness. These discourses can be activated simultaneously in society and in the classroom. However, the Norwegian school system’s core value of equality and inclusiveness gives precedence to the discourse based on citizenship. To manage the other discourses, teachers use different strategies when addressing boundaries along different dimensions of national belonging.

‘Sami Religion’ in Sámi Curricula in RE in the Norwegian School System: An Analysis of the Importance of Terms

In this article, we map and analyse the changes in conceptualisation and ideas on Sámi and indigenous people in the Sámi (Religious Education) RE curricula for primary and secondary school in the period from 1997 to 2015. Through the analysis of five sets of curricula for RE in this period, we investigate how they introduce a new set of ideas and concepts concerning religion related to the Sámi as an indigenous people. ‘Circumpolar indigenous people’s religion’ is a concept and a category that is primarily found within the Sámi curriculum of Norway’s educational system. As such, we argue it is a way of religion making through the conceptualization of Sámi religion in particular, and indigenous religions in general.