PhD ThesisThis thesis offers an ethnomusicological account of a contemporary movement toward
the formalization of education in England's folk music culture. The report considers, in
particular, two case studies: Folkworks and the associated degree course in folk and
traditional music at Newcastle University; and the folk festival subcontractor
organization, Shooting Roots. These are located first within the socio-historical context
of the English folk revivals, and then within the - largely disparate - contemporary
musical-cultural contexts of the North East of England, and (southern) `England'
respectively. Methodologies for the research draw predominantly on ethnographic
techniques of participant-observation and interview, but these are combined with the less
orthodox methods of internet and media-based fieldwork to offer the widest sociocultural
contextualization of the movement. The discourses surrounding these cases are
analysed in terms of pedagogy, education markets and a folk music industry, whilst the
musical texts with which they deal are shown simultaneously to assert and repudiate
regional and national identities. The thesis also offers key examples of the influences of
such institutionalization beyond the boundaries of organizations themselves. It concludes
that it is possible to regard the movement as a manifestation of an individualistconsumerist
culture and goes on to propose some critical theories of the movement in
relation to processes such as elitism, standardization and recontextualization.Arts and Humanities Research Council