Background: Yoik is an old vocal music tradition of Sami, the indigenous people inhabiting Northern Fennoscandia and Kola peninsula in Russia. Studies of music therapy (MT) and especially singing have documented improvements in social and overall functioning in people with severe mental disorders and positive effect on depressive symptoms and sleep quality. Possible connections between yoik and health are so far underexplored. Objectives: The overall aim of this study was to explore whether yoik may have the potential to positively influence people’s health and well-being. The research questions were: 1. What are different persons’ experiences with yoik? 2. Can yoik experiences be related to health outcomes? Methods: Explorative, qualitative interviews with 13 participants were conducted in the Norwegian counties Finnmark, Troms, Nordland, and Trøndelag. Findings: The findings suggest qualities in yoik that are comparable to positive effects of Music Therapy (MT) in general. Yoik may contribute to emotion management, i.e. processing negative emotions and inducing positive ones in people acknowledging yoik as something positive. Conclusion: Yoik may be considered an important marker of social and cultural belonging for many Sami people. Yoik seems to have an underresearched potential as an intervention in culture sensitive healthcare and health promotion work that deserves to be further investigated.

There are acceptable ways of studying Indigenous issues as a non-Indigenous scholar. Still, the role and identity of the scholar is important and debated within the study of Indigenous issues. The purpose of this article is to accept, but explore the premise of a distinction between Indigenous and non-Indigenous. I claim the possibility of taking a decentred space within Indigenous studies and move towards a methodological and theoretical foundation that is informed by scholars with different stances and backgrounds. A key approach is the intersectional approach to privilege. Neither privilege/oppression, Indigenous/non-Indigenous, nor insider/outsider are binary relations. From Indigenous methodologies such as kaupapa Māori, I emphasise, in particular, the local starting point, arguing that this is the way to transfer relevant issues to a bigger context.

Gender and indigeneity themselves are contested terms and fields of conflict. In this article, I bring the fields of gender studies and indigenous studies into conversation with each other. Starting from indigenous studies, I aim to let insights and perspectives from gender studies challenge and shed light on the methodology of indigenous studies. An outspoken gender perspective would contribute to, as well as challenge, the research on indigenous issues and thus, also, indigenous methodologies. I argue that gender and, following gender, also intersectional perspectives, are important in order to bring difference and disharmony to the table.

Music as a possible health-promoting agent has attained increasing academic and scientific interest over the last decades. Nonetheless, possible connections between indigenous singing traditions and health beyond traditional ceremonial healing practices are still under-researched worldwide.The Sami, the indigenous people living in Northern Fennoscandia, have a distinct ancient vocal music tradition called “yoik” practiced from immemorial times. The Sami share a history of assimilation with many indigenous people. During this period of nearly 400 years, yoik alongside other cultural markers was under hard pressure and even banned at times.Compared to other indigenous people in the Arctic, Sami public health shows few significant unfavourable differences to the majority population. The potential role of yoik as a protective health and resilience factor within the Sami culture is the topic of this review. We suggest a two stage model for the health promoting effects of yoik through i) emotion regulation and stress relief on the level of the individual, and ii) as a socio-cultural resilience factors within the Sami population. This review is to be understood as theory-building review article striving for a scholarly review of the literature.

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Since 1974, the curriculum for the Norwegian school has had a overarching part that puts the school and its content into a bigger social and political context. As such, this part of the curriculum is a highly political and ideological text that expresses the state's purpose and interest related to the school. This article looks into how indigenous people, minorities and diversity is represented in the general part of the curriculum from 1974 to 2017. The changing curricula show changes in the official politics and views on diversity. Through an analysis of the curricula we explore which terms and concepts that are used in the description of people and groups in Norwegian society. We focus primarily on the representation of the Sami, who move from being people in "mixed language districts" with limited rights, via being an "ethnic minority", to being an indigenous people with a set of rights. Further, we look into how the diverse society is represented, from the use of "alien workers", via "immigrants", to just "diversity". We argue that the concepts or strategies of politics of recognition and politics of integration respectively can be used to describe the curricula. Norway's educational policy towards minorities and indigenous people seems to exist between these two. In the end, this leave diversity competence as an important concept in the future Norwegian school.

Skolen legger føringer for undervisning om samisk historie, språk, kultur, samfunn og rettigheter. I denne artikkelen undersøker vi erfaringer med disse temaene gjennom intervjuer med laerere fra seks ulike skoler i Norge; tre i Nord-Norge og tre på Østlandet. Laerernes praksis påvirkes av samspillet mellom blant annet laereplaner, laeremidler, stedstilhørighet og perspektivering. Disse kan forstås som forutsetninger for å forankre samisk tematikk i undervisningspraksis. Vi argumenterer for at det foregår ei utvikling i skolene mot ei slik forankring, som bidrar til inkluderende utdanningspraksis. Derfor plasserer vi vår analyse inn i en større diskusjon om kompetanse på samiske temaer i skolen og muligheten for å innlemme urfolksperspektiv i forståelsen av et inkluderende klasserom.

Institutt for språk og kultur UiT Norges arktiske universitetKunnskap om samiske forhold som integrert del av laererutdanningene