ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the relationship between progress and the institutionalisation of knowledge in northern Fenno-Scandinavia. It examines the role that Sami and Finnish minorities have played in the strategies of the northern universities of Finland, Sweden and Norway as they were being established. The chapter describes how the Sami-speaking and Finnish-speaking groups have changed their political and ethnic status in the transformation from modernity to reflexive modernity. Higher education in northern Fenno-Scandinavia is a post-war phenomenon. Before the war, all the universities were located in the south of each country. A common denominator behind establishing northern universities was the need to improve economic development, general health care and education in the northern provinces. In a national context, Sami culture and language therefore have a stronger position at the University of Oulu than at the Universities of Tromso or Umea. Within this ideological framework, the Sami-speaking and the Finnish-speaking minorities in Sweden and Norway followed different paths of progress.
