The northern most region of Norway is rural and characterized by high out-migration, lower educational level, higher degrees of drop-outs from secondary education than other regions in Norway. Limited educational provision makes it necessary for many young people in rural areas to leave home to take on secondary education. Large geographical distances make it difficult to commute on daily basis (Paulgaard 2017). Historically, this area has been the most culturally diverse, domiciled of the Saami Indigenous people and the national minority Kven, and Norwegian ethnic group. This artic region is characterized by the encounter of the three ethnicities, traditional industries as fishing, farming, and herding, combined with modern industry and high knowledge enterprises. Even though this is a rural and low populated area, this artic region has, as the rest of Norway, a relatively strong economy and the people enjoy a well-developed welfare service. Despite this multiethnic and geographically diverse society and Nordic education values and policies of equality and inclusion community (Lundahl, 2016), the schools are still struggling with the old unit-oriented curriculum, ignoring the diversity among the pupils in an education system that appears foreign. In this paper we focus on how the metrocentric norms and goals of the curriculum leave out cultural, spatial and contextual differences disguised as ‘equity’ (Lødding & Paulgaard, 2019). When norms for rapid completion of education are applied as universal oriented career paths, the existence of diversity can be overlooked and devalued. In order to create social justice for a diverse variety of rural youth, knowledges and career paths, critical discussions of values in education models and curriculum is important to discover and open up “Invisible Fences” (Gullestad 2002). We reflect on our own experiences as educational scientists in this rural context to offer a global consideration of what we can learn from each other to make meaningful, practical improvements of rural education and communities.

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