The history of Sámi nursing education and the path toward regulations on a national guideline for Sámi nursing education in Norway

Abstract

The history of the Norwegianization policy against the Sámi, the Indigenous people of Sápmi, (northern Norway, Sweden, Finland and northwest Russia) was about colonization, assimilation and discrimination from 1930 until 1980. Many Sámi lost their mother tongue and were disconnected from their culture and traditional ways of living, which resulted in historical trauma. Taking this into consideration, a nursing program with specific Sámi content was implemented in northern Sápmi four times since 1995. This article elaborates our experiences with developing programs and new national guidelines in Sámi nursing in Sápmi. We encourage more tertiary education institutions in Sápmi to offer Sámi nursing programs with the above focus and recommend admission requirements that do not prolong the linguistic discrimination of Sámi students. Today, all Norwegian universities and colleges can draw up curricula for nursing programs with the particular aim of focusing on Sámi issues in nursing programs.