Sápmi and Its Cultural History: Johan Turi’s Account of Sámi Schooling—Towards a Sámi Epistemology

Professor Emerita of Pedagogy Asta Mitkija Balto lectures on Sámi education and the Sámi struggle, dating back to the early twentieth century, for greater influence over the content of education. The realization of a genuinely Sámi school—one that upholds and passes on Sámi values—remains an ongoing endeavor. The Truth and Reconciliation Commissions in Norway, Sweden, and Finland have documented the hardships experienced by the Sámi as their language, culture, and identity were systematically suppressed. It is now more urgent than ever for educational and cultural institutions to help raise awareness and revitalize what has been lost. In his 1910 book, Johan Turi pointed out that Sámi children were educated from a non-Sámi perspective, one that, according to Turi, displaced their inherited Sámi worldview with foreign values. The processes of assimilation and colonization that Turi described continue to this day and affect Sámi people of all generations. Decolonization means placing Sámi knowledge, language, and values at the center—it means relearning how to be Sámi.

Asta Mitkija Balto was born in 1948 in Kárášjohka/Karasjok, on the Norwegian side of Sápmi. She grew up on a small farm where her family lived off the surrounding natural resources, relying on fishing, hunting, and berry picking. They also kept reindeer. When she started boarding school at the age of seven, she did not speak Norwegian. She is the mother of a son and a daughter and a proud grandmother. Balto completed her studies at the University of Oslo in 1986 and was appointed as a researcher at the Nordic Sámi Institute, a unique institution established by and for the Sámi community. From 1989 to 1994, she served as director of the Sámi Education Council under the Norwegian Ministry of Education. Until 2015, she held a number of positions at Sámi allaskuvla / Sámi University of Applied Sciences in Guovdageaidnu/Kautokeino, including rector, vice-rector, lecturer, assistant professor, and associate professor.

In 2014 and again in 2024, she was appointed to participate in the accreditation of the Aha Pūnana Leo language program in Hawaiʻi, together with Indigenous professors from around the world. Since 2024, she has also served as an ethics adviser to BIRGEJUPMI, a Horizon Europe research and innovation project. She has been awarded an honorary doctorate by WINU (International Indigenous University) in recognition of her lifelong contributions to Sámi and other Indigenous education. Through her work to promote the revitalization and renewal of Sámi and other Indigenous languages and cultures, she has helped restore people’s pride and self-esteem while strengthening Sámi research and knowledge production in support of greater intellectual self-determination.

For more information about the seminar series Sápmi and Its Cultural History, click HERE