Intangible Cultural Heritage as a Resource for a Sámi Mathematics Curriculum

Abstract

Northern Norway’s population comprises many different cultural groups. According to the Norwegian Education Act, education must give students insight into and a firm foundation in history and culture. This paper aims to present a proposal for how to start working with the creation of local rural mathematics curricula for which Sámi culture in particular, and Northern Norwegian culture in general, is the basis and foundation. It examines three activities that are examples of intangible cultural heritage from different non-urban Northern Norwegian cultures: i) Sámi traditional measuring, ii) fishermen’s traditional navigation at sea and iii) ruvden (a Sámi way of braiding). The activities are analysed with respect to the framework cultural symmetry, which was developed in research in Māori mathematics education. The analysis shows that the three activities are of great significance to local cultural reasoning to such an extent that they should be included in local rural mathematics education. Each of the three activities provides opportunities for developing a culture-based mathematics teaching that values the language and culture in which the activities are embedded. We conclude that cultural symmetry seems to function as a tool for developing a Sámi mathematics curriculum.