Paper short abstract:

Folk schools have long thrived at the nexus of culture and change. Through the living word and immersive education, folk schools equip adults young and old with skills for embracing uncertainty and becoming agents of change. This paper considers the role of folk education in social movements.

Paper long abstract:

Folk education has been described as “Rooted in Struggle, Built by the Hands, Nurtured by Community, Borne by the Spirit, Lifted by the Heart” (as cited in Spicer, 2009, p. 24). First imagined by Danish priest N.F.S Grundtvig in the 1830’s as an educational approach to social empowerment, folk schools have long thrived at the nexus of culture and change. Through the power of the living word, and deeply immersive learning environments, folk schools equip adults young and old with the skills necessary to embrace uncertainty and become agents of change.

It is challenging to define the impacts of folk schooling on the many social movements that appear to have sprung up around them from agricultural cooperatives to craft and cultural preservation programs to civil rights and labour advocacy. But when viewed from a macro-perspective, one finds that folk schools have been embedded in social change movements across the world since their early beginnings. Highlander folk school co-founder Myles Horton (Hortons & Jacobs, 2003) suggested that this was, in part, because folk schools were particularly adept at stating their values declarations– what they were for and what they were against. Others attributed it to the living word (Canfield, 1965; Coe, 2000; Kavalier, 1962; Kulich,1964, 1997) and its ability to awaken and empower students as social actors. This paper considers the role of folk education in various North American social movements across time and place as well as their potential for educating adults in uncertain times.

Paper short abstract:

A century ago, the Scandinavian folk high school tradition deeply influenced the success of the Progressive Movement in Wisconsin. Its influence lives on today in a variety of ways, offering inspiration and a model to follow during this current era of precarity, uncertainty, and crisis.

Paper long abstract:

The paper adds to a relatively small but growing body of anthropological research examining the spread and transformation of the unique Scandinavian folk high school idea beyond its traditional Northern European borders. The state of Wisconsin has been chosen as the case study, a state located in the upper Midwest region of the United States that is known both for its historically high level of Scandinavian immigration as well as for being a leader in the U.S. Progressive Movement (late 1890s-late 1910s). As a native of Wisconsin, who is of Scandinavian descent, and who has been working as a folk high school teacher at The International People’s College in Denmark for the past seven years, the analysis presented here is based on a variety of methods including auto-ethnography, formal and informal interviews, and material-discursive analysis.

While it is relatively well-known and well-documented that Scandinavian-Americans in Wisconsin were very active and influential in the Progressive Movement of the time, the question of why has remained elusive for scholars (cf. Kazal 2006). This chapter suggests that the Scandinavian folk high school tradition and the values it instills – such as lifelong learning, self enlightenment, and active democratic participation – just might provide a key to unlocking the mysteries of that unique moment in U.S. history, as well as offer a model to follow for the current era of tumultuous American politics and neoliberalist policies in education and beyond.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores resonances between village revitalization projects in Bulgaria (responding to depopulation and cultural loss) and North American folk schools. I will overview the Bulgarian context and suggest avenues for comparative conversation between global creative education programs.

Paper long abstract:

During a conversation with one of my collaborators in Bulgaria—a young, urban woman working with a team of village revitalization project facilitators—I shared the history of folk schools in the North American context. After listening, she replied, “These sound like our program, Residentsiia Baba.”

This paper explores resonances between contemporary Bulgaria’s folklife-based revitalization projects and North American folk schools. In particular, I will discuss similarities with early folk schools in the Appalachian region and their motivating ideologies. Revitalization projects in Bulgaria rely on collaborations between villagers, village cultural centers (chitalishta), and contemporary young, urban Bulgarians, in response to uncertainties posed by depopulation, cultural loss, and intergenerational breakage. Participants in these programs are generally young adults living in cities, most of whom do not have connections to village life. While the projects aim to foster mutual growth between rural residents and urban participants, their programming also inadvertently relies on tropes of urban ingenuity and rural traditionality as cures to societal ills.

My presentation will offer an overview of projects and cultural centers in the Bulgarian context and suggest possible avenues for comparative conversation between global creative education programs. What do we seek to gain by discussing the resonances between seemingly disconnected movements? How can the illuminations of one context unlock the questions of another?

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines results of community development projects in the fishing village of Sebasco, Maine, inspired by the Antigonish Movement and spearheaded by Bert and Helen Baily in the 1930s. It discusses the tension between the Bailys’ desires for interpersonal outcomes and economic change.

Paper long abstract:

During the Great Depression, Albert “Bert” and Helen Baily, summer residents of Phippsburg, Maine, and directors of Three Fevers Camp, began a program of community economic and youth development in the fishing village of Sebasco. The Bailys and their followers (primarily young adults who participated in the camp) drew inspiration from the Antigonish Movement in Nova Scotia, where they made several trips to learn about cooperative enterprises. Over the next ten or fifteen years, projects in Maine included a credit union, knitting business, fish freezing plant, and a house lived in by a series of young adults who ran community programming during the winters. This work was conceptualized as having the practical aim of mitigating the economic uncertainty present in Sebasco’s seasonal fishing economy as well as instilling local autonomy and pride in its residents. It had the spiritual aim of building friendships between locals and nonlocals, and the Bailys conceptualized their work as coming from a place of relationship-building and not solely economic improvement. While these projects were intended to be locally driven, in practice this was not always the case. Drawing on oral history interviews and archival records (primarily newsletters and correspondence), this paper examines the successes and failures of these development projects and the tensions between the Baily group’s sometimes competing desires for interpersonal, relationship-related outcomes as well as economic ones.

Paper short abstract:

This paper will draw from contemporary ethnographic materials as well as archival materials to trace some of the patterns and currents that have shaped Campbell’s approaches to knowledge and pedagogy, as it intersects with and diverges from other enactments of the folk schools in North America.

Paper long abstract:

Published in 1925 in the first newsletter of the John C. Campbell Folk School, Olive Campbell wrote of the newly established school that it is an “experiment, which has, we believe, far more than local significance.” The early decades of the school sought to apply the philosophies of the Danish folkhøjskole to the rural “mountain problems” in the US. Located in Brasstown, North Carolina, it was to serve as a model, promoting new approaches to education that would bring practical, philosophical, and creative discussions to young adults. “The ultimate form which the [school] is to take must grow out of community need and the consciousness of that need. Such a growth will, of necessity, be slow, its direction uncharted and conceivably unexpected,” Campbell wrote. Her prescient words perhaps could not convey the various adaptations and uncertain directions the school and its communities have faced over the years, however it underscores the efficacy of the folk school model that relies on dynamic place-based and people-centered knowledge over prescribed curriculums and subjects.

This paper will reflect on Campbell’s continued pedagogical engagements that require immersive experiences and attention to learning beyond skills and facts. The school, emerging out of Covid and reckoning with the interrelated issues of racial, environmental, and economic disconnects in its history, is facing new challenges today as it re-engages with its mission and educational approaches to untangle uncertainties around community, social responsibility, and the extents to which creative living and learning can save the world (or their worlds).