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

This article explores decolonial pockets among Tornedalian teachers and principals by scrutinising the pre-requisites for school staff to integrate Tornedalen’s minority culture and practise the Meänkieli language in ordinary teaching and learning. It also investigates the challenges and opportunities aligned with such en-deavours. The data collection is based on qualitative focus-group and individual interviews with teachers, principals and pupils at upper secondary schools in two Tornedalian municipalities, in Northern Sweden. The findings reveal a practice in which teachers’ and principals’ Tornedalian cultural background is either more or less prominent, depending on the occasion. Particularly in the classroom context, teachers are obliged to mute and put aside their minority language, Meänkieli. Thus, they transform their behaviour and adopt a Swedish manner of conduct in their contacts with pupils. Consequently, teachers’ Tornedalian cul-tural identity becomes less prominent. Simultaneously, Swedish school culture takes precedence, and its authority controls what can be seen as proper educational subjects as well as the classroom’s social interactions. The analysis, guided by decolonising perspectives, reveals that minority language and cultural practices are mainly alive and active in the unofficial settings of the schools. These manifestations of resistance against the Swedish language and Swedish culture’s dominance of school practices, which remain alive in these decolonial pockets, is not organised and not part of official school practice. However, the conversations with school staff and pupils revealed that the competence, desire and strategies exist to ignite a pedagogy more inclusive of minority perspectives that can facilitate the transfer of Tornedalian minority knowledge and perspectives to pupils. This could empower decolonial Meänkieli practices and revitalise Tornedalian culture among young Tornedalians

Att passera gränsen för det normala,

Discussions about the sustainable city are now all over the world and many believe that the solutions are merely technical. But what gives the city its character is what is happening in the public places. It is these spaces that bring the people together. Design is the key to sustainable urban spaces. We must produce public places that reflect our society. If not, we have not created sustainability. This essay will highlight a shortcoming of the Swedish landscape architecture, which is not addressed in the public debate on Swedish landscape architecture. Swedish landscape architects rarely passes the limit of what can be considered common or normal. This mainly shows in the non-use of powerful colours and noticeable patterns. Each human being is different from one and other, our public spaces should reflect such differences and be more diverse. This paper primarily consists of literary studies and case studies as well as a conversation and a lecture. The literature studies have included studies of websites, magazines, literature on the modern landscape and architectural theory. Swedish landscape is described as uncomplicated, functional and uses a large extent of domestic materials. Extremes can be considered taboo in Sweden and Swedish landscape architectures rarely dare to stretch boundaries. There are many reasons for this. In Sweden there are almost no debate on Swedish landscape architecture, the field lacks a forum for such debate. The Swedish people have long been influenced by the image of themselves as a people with a uniform taste, “the Swedish taste”, which is simplicity and functionality. Sweden is young as an urban country and urbanity is a prerequisite for innovation and creativity. There are many different landscape architectural expressions you can work with and develop to get a more innovative approach. Colour and pattern are the landscape architectural expression that this thesis mainly deals with and to illustrate this, four different projects have been studied and described. These projects are pushing back the limits of what can be considered as normal in the use of bright colours or noticeable pattern as the basis of the design. One conclusion to be drawn from the paper is that the Swedish landscape architectural field rather relates to the Swedish landscape architectural tradition than to the complex context in which we live and operate in. However, there are opportunities for development

Young Tornedalians in education : the challenges of being national minority pupils in the Swedish school system

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Epidermolysa bullosa in Danish Hereford calves is caused by a deletion in LAMC2 gene

BACKGROUND Heritable forms of epidermolysis bullosa (EB) constitute a heterogeneous group of skin disorders of genetic aetiology that are characterised by skin and mucous membrane blistering and ulceration in response to even minor trauma. Here we report the occurrence of EB in three Danish Hereford cattle from one herd. RESULTS Two of the animals were necropsied and showed oral mucosal blistering, skin ulcerations and partly loss of horn on the claws. Lesions were histologically characterized by subepidermal blisters and ulcers. Analysis of the family tree indicated that inbreeding and the transmission of a single recessive mutation from a common ancestor could be causative. We performed whole genome sequencing of one affected calf and searched all coding DNA variants. Thereby, we detected a homozygous 2.4 kb deletion encompassing the first exon of the LAMC2 gene, encoding for laminin gamma 2 protein. This loss of function mutation completely removes the start codon of this gene and is therefore predicted to be completely disruptive. The deletion co-segregates with the EB phenotype in the family and absent in normal cattle of various breeds. Verifying the homozygous private variants present in candidate genes allowed us to quickly identify the causative mutation and contribute to the final diagnosis of junctional EB in Hereford cattle. CONCLUSIONS Our investigation confirms the known role of laminin gamma 2 in EB aetiology and shows the importance of whole genome sequencing in the analysis of rare diseases in livestock