Around the world, popular education movements linked to democratization or community life have been established with their own autonomous and indigenous curricula. They have often been run on a master-student basis, where the masters are people of particular standing in the community. They vary from what are called ‘initiation schools’ in parts of Africa, through religious schools now seen most often in Jewish and Islamic communities, and onward to schools associated with the labour unions and particular social or political movements. More recently, civil society organisations have developed ways of consolidating their various short term educational programmes into more extensive residential components believing that there is longer term impact from such investments.
A number of these recent developments look back to a particular movement which its protagonists consider to have had a significant impact on the development of democracy in the Scandanavian countries. There is a continuing promotion of these ideas and the popular institutions which support it in developing countries. It is useful therefore to look at perhaps the longest standing and most institutionalized of all popular education models associated directly with democracy.
The first folk school opened in Denmark in 1844 at the instigation of Nikolaj Grundtvig, and these ‘schools for life’ organized around a single teacher, a home and a small community of live-in learners quickly became part of the democratic life of the Nordic countries.
There are now schools which are firmly based on the Grundtvigian principles in many countries, and others which, while still retaining the name of folk school or folk high school, have evolved largely as vocational institutions with some attention to the political nature of work and to a firm relationship with the government in the town or region where they find themselves.
In their earliest manifestation there was a direct relationship between the democratization of the Nordic societies and the folk school. They were intended to “enliven and to enlighten, but first and foremost to enliven” (Christen Kold, 1866), and they insisted on control of their own curriculum at a time when more general formal education was slowly, and without immediate impact on working and farming classes, extending its reach.
Over time, the folk high school developed a particular societal niche at moments when individuals were finding their feet, exploring a new role in society, wanting to develop a new skill, or entering a new phase of life. There is a special interest in people with special educational needs and in immigrant communities. Different folk schools have different specialities and interests, but all of them operate according to an ethos described recently by the principal of the Alma Folk High School in Sweden as:
- a free adult and liberal education
- voluntary and non-formal although delivered through a formal institution
- institutions which operate on the belief that all citizens are free and independent and have a right to participate in all aspects of democratic society
- creating the conditions within which people freely pursue knowledge
- stimulating curiosity and critical thinking
Early folk schools encouraged singing, the use of the common language, and an understanding of politics and public life. This education is useful in the greater sense, but not utility focused in the sense of merely focusing on job skills or the passing of examinations. Very soon these principals were adopted by labour movement schools as well, and the folk school movement today still has broad social acceptance and support despite universal formal education.
Linked to this movement is the study circles movement, which makes use of animator organized self-education groups of adults who meet regularly to learn a skill or study an issue or subject. These study circles encourage self- management, life-long learning and particular learning from others in a collaborative and equal relationship. Study circles therefore provide remarkably effective and low cost opportunities for adult education and the development of social capital.
A number of developing countries (amongst them Tanzania and South Africa) are experimenting with study circles and folk schools because of the evident impact these have had on the quality of life and democracy in the Nordic countries.
