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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.