Regional Identity and Schools in Estonia: Creating a "We" Feeling?

Autor/in	Brown, Kara
Titel	Regional Identity and Schools in Estonia: Creating a "We" Feeling?
Quelle	In: European Education, 40 (2008) 3, S.8-26 (19 Seiten)Infoseite zur Zeitschrift PDF als Volltext Verfügbarkeit
Sprache	englisch
Dokumenttyp	gedruckt; online; Zeitschriftenaufsatz
ISSN	1056-4934
DOI	10.2753/EUE1056-4934400301
Schlagwörter	Foreign Countries; Geographic Regions; Nationalism; Ethnic Groups; Group Unity; Research Methodology; Cultural Maintenance; Language Maintenance; Estonia + Suchen Sie Ihr Suchwort? Ausland; Nationalismus; Ethnie; Gruppenidentität; Research method; Forschungsmethode; Sprachpflege; Estland
Abstract	Activists who are trying to preserve and revitalize the use of Voro, a regional language of southeastern Estonia spoken by only about 50,000 people, feel that the tongue is in jeopardy and that multidimensional efforts are required to secure its future. A leading Estonian folklorist and activist advised Voro-language instructors to cultivate a sense of belonging and a shared identity among students by teaching traditional culture: "Traditional culture should be taught in schools so that the children are immediately thinking of their grandparents, that some sort of "we" feeling arises in the children. This challenge is daunting in any setting, but it is particularly complicated in Estonia since the Estonian language, which is so central to national identity, has fewer than a million native speakers and is perceived to be endangered. Because Voro is spoken by ethnic Estonians and yet is claimed to be a distinct language, it can be perceived as a threat to Estonian's long-term viability. For this reason, regional-language activists in contemporary Estonia walk a fine line in their attempts to foster a "we" identity that promotes regional distinctiveness without being perceived as a threat to national solidarity. This article has a two-fold focus: the Voro Institute's normative, and at times descriptive, attempts to produce a regional identity through educational texts and the regional language teachers' reaction to and transformation of these proposed "we" identities in the classroom based on regional consciousness. The author discusses her research methods, presents a contextual overview of the Voro language, considers the role of the Voro language and culture in regional identity construction from the varying perspectives of the Voro Institute and teachers, and concludes with a discussion of the main findings of the research. (Contains 4 notes.) (ERIC).
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Erfasst von	ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), Washington, DC
Update	2017/4/10