Life Skills and Resilience Building in Folk High Schools

Abstract

The focus of this study is on Nordic folk high schools and their contribution to nonformal adult education in Denmark. The research study aims to provide an overview of folk high schools, from policies to contemporary practices concerning life skills and resilience-building. To achieve this, the study builds the contextual Framework for Adult Education and Lifelong learning in Denmark as a starting point and uses the European Adult Education Association's (2018) and The International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies' (2013) psychosocial perspective on Life Skills, along with Michael Ungar's (2019) Resilience Model as a theoretical framework. These frameworks provide the layered contextual background, definitions of life skills and resilience and show the specific processes and ingredients required to build resilience within an educational institution. The study uses qualitative analysis to examine the presence of life skills and resilience processes in folk high schools in Denmark where the folk high school movement originated and still operates. This thesis is data-driven and uses an inductive method. To gather data, the study uses document analysis and an informant interview. The study concludes that life skills and resilience building processes are implicitly present in the contemporary practices of folk high schools. Folk high schools offer pedagogical practices that foster personal fulfillment and development through life, active citizenship, and social inclusion. Thus, folk high schools are one alternative to strengthen adult education and lifelong learning policy objective in building social and civic inclusion.