The anthology "Perspectives on the Global Folk High School Movement and People’s Future Lab" is initiated and edited by Global Network for Folk high school Research withb the aim of deepening the understanding of the Global folk high school movements' identity and practice. The18 chapters in the book analyse and/or describe folk high schools in the different geographical and cultural settings where they exist.
The presented anthology has three main parts:
Part I Introduction with threee chapters that analysis common traits within the Global folk high school movement. The pedagogical model represented by the Nordic folk high schools has had an impact beyond the Nordic region. Mapping the global spread of folk high school pedagogy, Bugge[1] registers 695 regional adaptions of Grundtvigian pedagogy in European countries such as Holland, Germany, Hungary and Poland, as well as in North America, South America, Asia and Africa (2013). Busbee[2] (2018) writes about the global spread of Grundtvig's educational philosophy:
Grundtvig’s vision for education, his call for progressive enlightenment, and his belief that proper education embraces an idea of living community and fellowship—these ideologies have informed educational movements in countries all over the world.
While the roots of the Nordic folk high schools can be traced to Denmark and the pedagogical philosophy of NFS Grundtvig, the Association of Folk High Schools in Denmark (FFD) has organised several activities to unite the Global folk high school movement. The establishment of GNFR and developments of projects such as People’s Future Lab can be traced back to the International Folk High School Summit organised in 2019 by FFD. The Summit gathered more than 120 folk high school practitioners, researchers and promotors from 28 countries around the world.
Part II THE GLOBAL FOLK HIGH SCHOOL MOVEMENT includes six chapters that describe and analyse different manifestations of folk high school pedagogy around the world. The anthology’s aim is to reflect the Global folk high school movement, and the texts vary in research methodology and literary genre. In our editorial discussions we have commented that the width of style in the chapters, as well as in the authors' background mirrors the Global folk high school movement.
Part III PEOPLE’S FUTURE LAB consists of seven chapters that develop perspectives on the global education project People’s Future Lab. Th project was designed as an action research project and built around eleven partnerships between Danish and international folk high school connected organisations. The countries that represented the international folk high school movement included: Tanzania, India, Japan, England, USA, Mexico, Faroe Islands, Palestine and Poland and the UK. The objective of People’s Future Lab was to strengthen the participants’ pedagogical praxis, their global connections and through the involved people’s engagement, to invigorate our role in the sustainable transition.
Chapter overview
PART I
INTRODUCTION
Chapter 1
Participatory epistemology: A contemporary conceptualisation of Grundtvigian pedagogy
Johan Lövgren and Dawn Jackman Murphy
Chapter 2
The Danish Folk High School Association’s international
engagement 1925–2025
Sara Skovborg Mortensen
Chapter 3
Freire, Tagore and Grundtvig: A connection transgressing time and place
Asoke Bhattacharya, Sergio Haddad and Johan Lövgren
PART II
THE GLOBAL FOLK HIGH SCHOOL MOVEMENT
Chapter 4
Together separately: A transnational comparison of nine folk high school educators’ perspectives on the importance of
community
Garry Nicholson
Chapter 5
Rabindranath Tagore and people’s education in India
Asoke Bhattacharya and Johan Lövgren
Chapter 6
Establishing folk high schools in a warzone: Education for
resilience in Ukraine
Yurii Pyvovarenko, Sergey Chumanchenko, Mihail Krikunov,
Igor Folvarochny and Johan Lövgren
Chapter 7
Finding the folk in Fircroft: Past, present and beyond
Angela Bate
Chapter 8
Change Makers’ College: A starting point for international
collaboration
Trine Pilegaard Villemoes and Wataru Miyauchi
Chapter 9
Tagore on vocational education and lifelong learning: The Sriniketan experiment
Santwana Chatterjee
PART III
PEOPLE’S FUTURE LAB
Chapter 10
A pedagogy for global sustainable transition: Learning from global adult education projects
Melanie Lenehan
Chapter 11
Global folk high school: Community between global change and pedagogical practice
Lars Heidtmann, Sara Johanne Korsholm Kristensen, Bjørn Strøm and Johan Lövgren
Chapter 12
Troubling sustainable development
Maria E. N. Jensen and Line Bilberg
Chapter 13
Developing global political friendships
Trina Jackson, Juan Mayorga and Johan Lövgren
Chapter 14
Towards a folk education for the global majority in the United States
By Ashby Combahee
Chapter 15
At Fircroft, we sing: Introducing communal singing
Zoe Mabbs and Holly Henderson
Chapter 16
Transition to adulthood at a Japanese-style folk high school
Shunsuke Mitsui, Takashi Kobayashi and
Trine Pilegaard Villemoes
NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS