Organic Classrooms: Rhetorical Education at the Highlander Folk School, 1932-1961
Open Access
Author:
Schneider, Stephen Anthony
Graduate Program:
English
Degree:
Doctor of Philosophy
Document Type:
Dissertation
Date of Defense:
February 21, 2007
Committee Members:
Keith Gilyard, Committee Chair/Co-Chair Jeffrey Nealon, Committee Member Dr Jack Selzer, Committee Member Dr. Ronald Jackson II, Committee Member
Keywords:
Civil Rights Movement Highlander Folk School social change english studies adult education rhetoric and composition workers education
Abstract:
<i>Organic Classrooms: Rhetorical Education at the Highlander Folk School, 1932-1961</i> evaluates the programs taught at one of the twentieth century’s most controversial educational institutions. Highlander, a residential adult education center located in Appalachian Tennessee, became famous (and infamous) for its work with the Southern Labor Movement and the Civil Rights Movement. Specifically, this study attends to the ways that the school prepared students for symbolic action—or the rhetorical use of local cultural media—within their communities and larger social movements.
My dissertation describes the development of the folk school’s educational programs—particularly drama, labor journalism, music, and literacy education—as agencies for promoting and achieving social change. These programs proved important not just for the various skills and strategies that were taught to students, but also for the ways in which they organized students into larger communities. In this way, Highlander staff saw education for social change not simply as a question of curriculum, but rather as a means of political action.
