Education for Social Change – the many histories of the Woodcraft Folk

On Saturday 15th September 2018 UCL hosted a symposium examining the relevance of the history of the Woodcraft Folk organisation in terms of understanding developments in progressive education and youth political movements in the UK and internationally. The symposium was organised jointly by staff from the UCL Centre for Critical Heritage Studies (Flinn), the Institute of Education (IOE) (Bourn) and the University of Brighton (Pollen) and was supported by the UCL Centre for Critical Heritage Studies, UCL IOE Special Collections and the Woodcraft Folk. The event marked both the transfer of the Woodcraft Folk archive to UCL IOE Special Collections and the continuing engagement with the organisation’s heritage by its members, young and old, in informing debates about the relevance of young people’s organisations and progressive education approaches today. The day began with a rousing keynote from former Woodcraft Folk General Secretary and current Member of Parliament for Brighton Kemp Town Lloyd Russell-Moyle who focussed on the importance of both history and political education in informing young people in today’s struggles for social transformation. This was followed with talks on topics as varied as progressive cultures in the inter-war period, socialism and eugenics in the interwar period, youth organisation and political education in the UK and Germany, education around the notion of world citizenship and education, the outdoors and the environment with speakers from the Universities of Brighton, Chichester, London and the Archive of the German Youth Movement in Witzenhausen. The day ended with a series of reflections from young members of the Woodcraft Folk present and academic rapporteurs about where the topics discussed and the histories of youth organisations more generally fitted into broader contemporary issues and studies. It is planned that the papers presented will form the basis of a future volume of collected essays. 

Links

• Kemp Town Lloyd Russell-Moyle, Member of Parliament for Brighton 
• Symposium
• Woodcraft Folk

Photo: © 2018 the many histories of the Woodcraft Folk symposium, courstesy of Cecile Bremont