The light from the North—voyaging towards the west. Grundtvig and the Folk High School movement from Scandinavia to United States

Abstract

AbstractN.F. S. Grundtvig is the Danish founding father of the Folk High Schools. In this article, I first describe Grundtvig's original idea and the application of the Folk High School in Norway as an alternative popular school for adults from a rural context, children of farmers, fishermen, and sailors. I further reflect upon this unique arena's cultural importance as well as the socio‐political implications of the Folk High School pedagogy. In particular, I consider the methods behind the desired empowerment of the participants towards active citizenship and the close interaction with some of the strong social movements of the varying time periods. Next, I discuss how this idea was exported before and after World War II, and thereby underwent an important modernization and transformation. Grundtvig's seminal ideas spread across the Atlantic. In the United States, they disseminated in the establishment of so‐called Folk Schools, amongst them the national and politically important Highlander Folk School. In this way, Grundtvig's vision gained new importance as an incubator for the integration of people of different ethnic backgrounds, supporting the emergence of local and national Trade Unions and facilitating the Civil Rights Movement.