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Linguistic Challenges That Turned Out to be Legal Ones

Linguistic Challenges That Turned Out to be Legal Ones. Kaisa Syrjänen Schaal, LL.M. Church of Sweden. Why is the Church of Sweden involved in minority and indigenous issues ?. more focus on indigenous and minority issues because these groups are also part of the church

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Linguistic Challenges That Turned Out to be Legal Ones

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  1. Linguistic Challenges That TurnedOut to be Legal Ones Kaisa Syrjänen Schaal, LL.M. Church of Sweden

  2. Why is the Church of Sweden involved in minority and indigenousissues? • morefocus on indigenous and minorityissuesbecausethesegroups are also part of the church • reconciliationprocesses with the Sami and Roma • need to react on human rights violations • commitment to work with rights based approach and empowerment in general Examples: criticized the Swedish Government for beingtoo passive in implementingindigenous rights (2013); twoshadow reports to Council of Europe on minority rights (2012, 2013); recent report on minority/indigenousyouthissues

  3. Swedish experience • the rights of national minoritieswererecognizedvery late (1999) – limited action • indigenous rights have not beendeveloped in spite of domestic and international criticism • general lack of awareness and knowledge of national minorities’ and indigenous rights and historicalwrongdoings by the state • selfrighteousattitudestowardsdomestic human rights issues

  4. Manylinguisticchallenges • ongoinglanguageshiftis threateningthe survival of national minoritylanguagesin Sweden • somelanguages are severlythreatened • similarpatterns: fewerchildrenlearntheirminoritylanguage, functionalilliteracy, limitedlanguagedomains, limited public use and lack of media in minoritylanguages • toofew are reachinghigherproficiency and literacy in minoritylanguages

  5. decisive and innovative measures are neededaccording to NGOs, linguists, Council of Europe and UN Special Rapporteur on IndigenousIssues • The Swedish educationalsystem’sability to support and promoteminoritychildren’sproficiency and literacy in theirminoritylanguage is the singlemostimportantissue to address for the minoritylanguages to survive. Yet, verylittle has beendone….

  6. Marginalized and IgnoredNational Minority Children’s Struggle for Language Rights in Sweden 2013 (Dec. 2013)

  7. Legal problems in educational system • Legislation in the field of education is tooweak, it does not provide the right to strongerimmersion och bilingual programs. • Municipalitieswill not doanythingwithout legal obligations. • It is virtuallyimpossible to increase the volumes of pupils or the amount of teachingprovided in minoritylanguages.

  8. Bilingual or minoritylanguage medium pre-schooleducationis difficult to get, even in areas where the municipalitieshave to provide it • ”partly in minoritylanguage” v. ”substancial part” (minimalistic interpretations limit possibilities) • Mothertonguetuition(30-40 min/week) is not enough in order to acquirehigherproficiency and literacy • It is difficult to evenreceivemothertonguetuitionofanylength: 300 out of 595 Sami pupilsreceivedsuchtuition (2011) • ”Basic knowledge” in minoritylanguage is still required for tuition

  9. Bilingual programs are veryfew: 188 pupils in Sami Schools + 167 pupils in integrated Sami program (2012); 7 bilingual Sweden-Finnishschools with 698 pupils (2013). • Strongerimmersion programs are not allowed (minimum of 50 % teaching in Swedish). • Exceedinglydifficult to establish new private minorityschools. Have to show ”sufficient” number of potential pupils in advance.

  10. Structural problems in educational system • Teachertraining is beingreformed: seriouslyunderfunded, will not provide enoughteachers (minimum fundingneeded 26.3 million SEK; the Swedish Governmentallocated 6.5 million SEK) • no extra incentives for students (yet, suchincentives are beingusedtoday for othertypes of teachertraining) • Lack of sanctions and remedies

  11. Conclusions • National minority and indigenouschildren are not receiving the support theyneed. They and theirneeds are beingignored and marginalizedwithin the educational system. • Sweden is not fulfillingits obligations under Council of Europe Minority Conventions nor under Article 30 of the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child (the right to language and culturalidentity).

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