Northern regions are characterised by long distances, dispersed settlements, limited resources, Indigenous populations and rapidly changing climatic conditions. These unique contextual factors create challenges for teachers and teacher educators alike, particularly when teachers are tasked with implementing ‘Universalistic’ and standardised curricula to meet specific ‘ends’. Top-down approaches to curriculum design and implementation encourage reliance on Anglophonic interpretations of pedagogy, which can be defined as ‘the methods and practices of teaching’. This interpretation promotes educative positions drawn from colonial power and hegemonic geopolitical standpoints, which directs attention towards educational practices that cite observable and replicable formulae, portable between contexts drawn from complex and inter-connected factors, including: 

1.     English language dominance. 

2.     The elevation of disconnected, western scientific knowledge forms validated by canon and historic interpretations of literature, society, and culture. 

3.     A view of teachers as all-knowing and students as vessels to be filled. 

4.     Ways of knowing divorced from social, cultural, historic, and political aspects of peoples’ lives. 

5.     The influence of neo-liberal agendas that strive to standardise. 

Such a reductive interpretation of pedagogy ignores myriad writing, and elides Arctic and Indigenous philosophical, anthropological, cultural, and geographic/geopolitical perspectives.  

Conversely, Arctic Pedagogy connects people, place, and time through ‘…concepts of language, cultures, digitalisation, communities and elders, all of which are layered and closely interlinked’ (UArctic, 2019, p. 2). Through this appreciation of the complexity of contextual factors, Arctic Pedagogy offers considerable scope to explore how - through learning and teaching - social, cultural linguistic and ecological pluralities can be responded to and sustained, rather than standardised. Arctic perspectives are not a call to a ‘romantic Other’ but the redirection of education towards enduring ways of living where pedagogy is understood relationally and consists of ‘being in and acting on the world, with and for others’ (Adams, 2022, p. 14). 

 This position has been developed over time and through ongoing conversations between the authors of this Symposium, along with other teacher educators and academics based in Institutions of Teacher Education and Pedagogy across ‘the north’, including Finland, Norway, Iceland, Faroe Islands, Greenland and Scotland. Together, we have formed an interdisciplinary collaborative group, with the name of ‘New Northern Pedagogies Group’. This group has evolved, and continues to evolve, as a result of projects, meetings and exchanges funded by the Scottish Government (SG) and the Royal Society of Edinburgh (RSE). Our primary aim is to elevate pedagogy-oriented conversations, to include and embrace a range of perspectives, including Arctic social policy, history, Indigenous cultures and languages, geographical and ecological sustainability. Rather than focussing on the ‘what’ and the ‘how’ of teaching, the emphasis of our conversations are on debates centring on the ‘why’ and ‘to what ends’ of education.  

 The papers brought together in this Symposium reflect the diverse ways in which the members of the New Northern Pedagogies Group approach and grapple with these pedagogical considerations from their different contexts, positions and roles.  Paper 1 explores the idea of pedagogy as gifting and outlines how this reconceptualisation of pedagogy aligns with the notion of Arctic Pedagogy as a relational and reciprocal act. Paper 2 presents a critique of universalistic curricula within the context of northern Norway and in doing so presents the need for a more relational approach, which more fully embraces the inherent diversity within and between communities. Finally, Paper 3 brings these conversations into the context of teacher education by surfacing the importance of supporting student teachers to develop culturally responsive practices. As a whole, the symposium will create space to further conversations and explore possibilities for more expansive and relational interpretations of pedagogy within and beyond Arctic regions.

Adams, P. (2022). Scotland and Pedagogy: Moving from the Anglophone Towards the Continental?. Nordic Studies in Education, 42(1), 105–121. https://doi.org/10.23865/nse.v42.3770. UARCTIC. (2019). Thematic network on teacher education for social justice and diversity. Position Paper on Arctic Pedagogy. https://68d6b65eac.clvaw-cdnwnd.com/0864e685b4bb69d24559774bdc786a0e/200000187-681e8681ea/statement_A4_web.pdf