Paper short abstract:

This paper discusses the transmission of traditional skills, labeled Intangible Cultural Heritage, within public school settings, based on the case study of the teaching of the Faroese Chain Dance in Faroese public schools.

Paper long abstract:

Since 1997 the traditional Faroese Chain Dance - a dance accompanied only by the collective chanting of ballads - has been explicitly included in the national curricula of the Faroese public schools. The inclusion was intended as a supporting measure, as the traditional contexts of transmission were changing and general interest of participating in the practice seemed to be fading. However, the outcomes have varied greatly from one school to another. As the dance was listed on the Faroese Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2020, questions about “best practices” and about the purpose of including this subject as a mandatory part of every Faroese child’s education has become even more relevant, as the schools are expected to play a vital part in the future safeguarding of the dance.

In this paper I present fieldwork in five different Faroese schools as well as interviews with both teachers and dancers regarding the role of the school in the contemporary transmission of the practice. It turns out that teaching of the dance has been practiced in very different ways in various schools and that some teachers continue to struggle to fulfill the goals set out for them -a challenge described already in 2008 by Danish music ethnologist, Eva Fock. There seems to be some disagreement and confusion regarding didactic methods and regarding ontological aspects of the practice teachers are expected to transmit. Teachers seem to perceive the task differently, depending both on their personal background and their perception of realistic learning goals.

Paper short abstract:

Swedish schools and leisure-time centres are often characterized by a post-Christian attitude, which means that Christian holidays have been redefined and lost their religious content. In my presentation, I will discuss issues concerning how teachers deal with religion in a post-Christian context.

Paper long abstract:

As public spaces, Swedish schools and leisure-time centres are often characterized by a post-Christian attitude, which means that Christian holidays and the performance of Christian rituals have been redefined and lost their religious content in the school context. Just as the school often finds it difficult to recognize post-national youth, because it is born out of nationalism and ideas about the creation and maintenance of the nation, students with religious identities cause certain problems. Their presence challenges the post-Christian attitude. This creates challenges for the leisure-time centre teachers as leaders, the school as an organization and the relationship between teacher and student.

In my presentation, I will discuss issues concerning how leisure-time centre teachers deal with religion in a post-Christian context. Many studies have dealt with religious education in the classroom context or, as in my own previous study, the study visit context. Significantly fewer studies have been interested in the contexts where the relationship to religion is more open and less regulated. How do leisure-time centre teachers work with issues concerning religion? By analysing it from a perspective concerning post-Christianity, it becomes interesting to try to understand what is perceived as viable and what is perceived as confessional and thus problematic (in municipal schools).

Paper short abstract:

Based on infant-toddler centres and preschools teachers’ narratives, this paper offers a reflection on the cultural impact of Covid-19 pandemic on educational practices in municipal early childhood services in Milan and Reggio Emilia (Italy).

Paper long abstract:

This paper proposes some reflections emerged from the research I am conducting with teachers of municipal infant-toddler centres (0-3 years) and preschools (3-6 years) in Milan and Reggio Emilia (Italy). The aim is to analyse how usual educational practices have changed during the health emergency and how children reacted to these changes. I mainly focus on the return to class in September 2020, following the long lockdown that, in Italy, forcibly interrupted attendance in March of the same year. In this paper I intend to show how the rituals that organise the daily routine of an educational service, made up of moments dedicated to play, personal care, food consumption, and rest, have been modified due to the health emergency. This means analysing times, spaces, and objects that characterize the identity of a early childhood education service. Particular attention will be paid to the way the body is used in interpersonal relationships between children and teachers, and among children themselves. I will demonstrate as the teachers’ "narrated practices" offer a privileged point of view for understanding this historical moment of crisis, but also of deep educational experimentation.

Paper short abstract:

Assignments are a rich source for ethnological writing about everyday school life. This presentation revisits methodological implications of doing fieldwork in school in this digital age, specially when relying in diverse materials: student interviews, diaries, search logs and archive material.

Paper long abstract:

A proud construction of a hotel for insects, developing a successful recipe to explain history, a Finnish thesaurus of war propaganda in newspapers... A thread that connects these diverse achievements is the school and assignment context in which they happened. School assignments have emerged during my fieldwork as source material for three articles. In this presentation I will make sense of three diverse field sites (classrooms, digital environments, archives) and the resulting research materials to extract some methodological implications of school assignments for undertaking ethnographic work.

To make sense of school assignments I have borrowed Mary Soliday's "everyday genres of academia" (2011). Despite obvious differences with academia, school assignments constitute "socially informed and enacted moments". Thanks to their trial character, social and technological interactions, and presentational elements, assignments offer ethnographers an immersion 'in the thick' of the school experience. They allow to witness the repetitive and routinised, "templates" through which students appropriate a private understanding of diverse "bits" of course matter.

In my dissertation, school assignments relate somehow with cultural heritage. My aim is to inform how cultural heritage is meaningful in terms of learning communities that engage with it outside the traditional museum visit, in their everyday schoolwork. My fieldwork showed that during these brief intense periods students rely most on digital materials and methods. However, methodological dilemmas arise when organising fieldwork around digitally mediated assignments: digital learning environments can make them inaccessible, their ephemeral character hinders its collecting, and as archive material they are extremely fragmentary.

Paper short abstract:

Langspil, an Icelandic drone zither, was part of the countries' farming culture until it fell into obscurity at the beginning of the 20th century. A century later elementary students are at the centre of a research where langspils are being remade with digital technology at the local Fab Lab.

Paper long abstract:

Langspil is an Icelandic folk instrument of the drone zither family. The oldest written sources date back to the 18th century but the instrument seems to have gained popularity in pre-industrial farming communities during the 19th century. In the beginning of the 20th century the langspil fell almost into complete obscurity. Over a century later, langspil making and playing has been gaining interest within a small group of professional and amateur musicians in Iceland.

In 1981 ethnomusicologist David G. Woods made the first scientific research on langspil. In his report, where 21 old langspils in museums and private collections were examined, he also put forward ideas on the uses of the instrument in the elementary school system. Forty years later Woods' ideas are being materialised in an ongoing ethnomusicological research at the Flóaskóli Elementary School in South-Iceland.

In collaboration with music and craft teachers, students design their individual langspil, which is then laser printed in plywood at the local Fab Lab (Fabrication Laboratory). Once students finish assembling the instrument, painting it and strings have been attached, music lessons can commence. Students both learn to play the instrument and use it as an accompaniment for singing. As a drone instrument it is ideal for elementary students where little or no musical training is required for an effective accompaniment.

It is a multidisciplinary empirical project with a strong focus on craft and music. It also touches on many ethnological topics, such as popular culture, place and locality and cultural heritage.

Paper short abstract:

What kind of assessment of social norms should be done prior to nudge intervention? Ethnographic fieldwork is conducted in schools, where the students and teachers will be nudged into more sustainable commuting. Nudges are behavioral steering methods that can help combat climate change.

Paper long abstract:

Nudges are behavioral steering methods, which can act as a support for other more traditional ways to affect peoples’ choices (for example taxes, laws, subsidies). They can also be used to steer climate change related behaviors. Other phenomenon that has proven to have considerable effect on individuals’ choices are social norms. The paper uses a bricolage of methods from ethnology and behavioral sciences to study the commuting habits of teachers and school children.

I will investigate what kind of assessment of social norms should be done for the subject group before the nudge intervention and how social norms can be measured. I will conduct ethnographic fieldwork in Finnish schools, where the students and teachers will be nudged into more sustainable commuting. The fieldwork is done in the January-February of 2022, consisting of research walks done in 4-6 schools. The walks will include observation of the school grounds and interview with the headteacher of the school, janitorial representative and a transport planner from the municipality. An application for mapping geospatial data about school commuting circumstances is used for collecting and equalizing the observations from different schools.

The collected data helps with co-creating effective and targeted nudges with the stakeholders. The goal of the interventions is to increase active transportation methods (e. g. cycling or walking) and decrease private motoring (e. g. parents driving their children to school). The interventions can have a significant influence on the students transportation choices and exercise habits, as well as the air quality around the school.