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This comparative curricular study examines the educational functions of the Swedish Sámi nomad school curricula before and after a central school reform in the 1960s. Due to the reform, the nomad school, a boarding school system for the Indigenous Sámi people in Sweden, was formed to bring about systemic changes in the education of Sámi children, to be more inclusive, and to meet new democratic educational demands. This study presents an in-depth examination of the written curricula through a thematic analysis by scrutinising the nomad School syllabi of 1956 (UP56) and 1969 (Lgr69), with an emphasis on aspects of continuity and change. In theoretical terms, the study is inspired by Biesta’s educational functions. This study identified the continued importance of reindeer husbandry (RH), while the reform transformed the traditional RH context towards adaptation to the needs of the Swedish meat industry, in a period marked by intrusion into traditional Sámi lands. The study also found that although the education system set out to protect the Sámi language after the reform, the Sámi language was consistently given a low degree of importance in the curricula. Another source of tension concerns the explicit policy to open the Sámi education for all Sámi children at the same time, educating differentiation among Sámi.

To increase Sámi influence and re-actualize traditional knowledge. Sák96 and the Sámi educational ambition in relation to Lpo94. Throughout history, Sámi education has been governed by a Swedish state perspective through legislation and curricula. On one single occasion, an education directive has been published in Sweden based on a Sámi perspective, namely the Sámi syllabi 1996 (Sák96). Sák96 was formed for Sámi education and worked as a complement to the curriculum for the compulsory Swedish school system in 1994 (Lpo94). This study is based on thematic analysis of Sák96 and Lpo94. The purpose is to analyse the educational ambitions in Sák96 in relation to Lpo94 as well as in relation to Sámi identities expressed in the educational ambitions. The analysis is anchored in Gert Biesta’s theories about educational domains and ambitions of education as well as concepts about identification and imagined communities. The study shows that the main ambition with Sák96 was to protect and develop Sámi culture and language in a more detailed way than Lpo94. Sák96 also included additional historical perspectives on the Swedish society’s encroachment on traditional Sámi land, more detailed knowledge of Sámi society and Sámi knowledge traditions, and a desire to create conditions for increased Sámi influence. The Sámi community appears to be closely connected to reindeer husbandry communities according to Sák96. The Sámi communities are also presented as a people divided in four countries (northern Norway, Sweden, Finland as well as Kola Peninsula, Russia) with differentiated livelihood and conditions.

In the book chapter the Swedish school system for the Indigenous Sámi’s from the 1960s to the 2000s is studied. This is done with a special focus on curriculum content of the Sami curriculum from 2011 (Lsam11) in relation to the Swedish primary school curriculum from the same year (Lgr11). The curriculums of 2011 are placed within a historical perspective of Sámi education in Sweden, and the analysis of the curricula and syllabi in history, civics and Sámi language is based on Biesta's educational functions qualification, socialisation and subjectification, as well as imagined communities and self-identification due to Anderson, Hylland Eriksen and Brubaker. The results show that the curriculum content tends to place Swedish identity as superior to the Sámi identity, something that becomes problematic due to the Swedish state's treatment of the Sámi throughout history. For example, all Sami social functions are sorted under cultural socialising expressions, something that diminishes the Sámi identity in relation to the Swedish identity.