Search
KASTELHOLM TALKS
RESEARCH
THE ÅLAND EXAMPLE
JASS
Rapport_3-2010

New report on minority education in Finland

Rapport_3-2010The third report of the ÅIPI in 2010 concerns the right of persons belonging to linguistic minorities to receive education in and of their own language according to international law and Finnish law. The author of the report is Kristian Myntti, researcher at the Law department of Åbo Akademi University.

Myntti analyses Finnish legal acts and practices in questions that concern the educational situation of minorities. The report also covers the status of the Swedish language, though Swedish juridically speaking is one of Finland's two official languages (Finnish and Swedish). The report also examines the situation of Sami, Romani, Russian, Tatar, Yiddish and Karelian. Kristian Myntti portrays an intense language political legal debate, which contains threatening scenarios, but also progress for the different languages.

The main argument made by Myntti is that the status of Swedish is increasingly being questioned and circumscribed also in the educational sector in Finland, while at the same time awareness of increased diverse language situations in Finland have led to a somewhat clearer position for other languages. These developments are not seen as connected, but merely as parallell.

The report is the fruit of a long cooperation between the ÅIPI and Åbo Akademi University. The research has been funded by the Svenska kulturfonden.

The report is written in Swedish, and can be downloaded here.