Memorial University DAI: Folklore, the school and the child : the role of formal education in children's calendar customs in a Newfoundland outport

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Title	Folklore, the school and the child : the role of formal education in children's calendar customs in a Newfoundland outport
Author	Saunders, Sheila Maud, 1952-
Description	Thesis (M.A.)--Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1982. Folklore
Date	1982.
Pagination	vi, 2, 170 leaves : ill.
Subject	Folklore and education--Newfoundland and Labrador; Folklore and children--Newfoundland and Labrador; Holidays--Newfoundland and Labrador;
Degree	M.A.
Degree Grantor	Memorial University of Newfoundland. Dept. of Folklore
Discipline	Folklore
Language	Eng
Spatial Coverage	Canada--Newfoundland and Labrador
Notes	Bibliography : leaves 125-140.
Abstract	The aim of this study was to assess the role of educational institutions and their representatives in one area of children's folklore in Newfoundland, in the light of contemporary scholarship in the general field of folklore and education. -- An examination of literature reveals that in recent years folklorists and educators alike have focused more attention, and more intently, on the topic of ‘folklore and education', with a view to incorporating folklore in the regular school curriculum. Though a number of journals have devoted entire issues to the subject of folklore and education, and others have from time to time published articles offering specific suggestions for utilizing folklore in the classroom (usually as a minor portion of a high school social studies or English course or an integrated part of an elementary school language arts program), the material has largely remained sporadic and unorganized. -- When folklorists have considered the school setting as part of their research area, they have generally restricted themselves to an investigation of children's activities on the playground. Attention to children's calendar customs has been even more limited, with general works on calendar customs often incidentally including purely descriptive accounts of children's calendric activities, intermingled with descriptions of adult behaviours. -- This work contends that the formal classroom setting has not been viewed by folklorists as a viable area in which to conduct practical fieldwork. Documentary accounts of classroom settings have come from teachers who have inevitably seen folklore as serving a strictly didactic function. Folklorists and teachers have not seen the classroom group (teacher and students) as worth of study in itself, as evidenced in their omission to study the traditions of the classroom and the school. -- This investigation of children's calendar customs in the primary school at Musgrave Harbour, illustrates the viability of the formal classroom as a setting for folklore research. It is not enough to investigate student activities; teachers themselves have a definite value as informants. Folklorists must study not only the place of folklore as an instructional unit, but the teachers and students, who are together active participants in their own group traditions.
Type	Text
Resource Type	Electronic thesis or dissertation
Format	Image/jpeg; Application/pdf
Source	Paper copy kept in the Centre for Newfoundland Studies, Memorial University Libraries
Local Identifier	75215957
Rights	The author retains copyright ownership and moral rights in this thesis. Neither the thesis nor substantial extracts from it may be printed or otherwise reproduced without the author's permission.
Collection	Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Scanning Status	Completed
PDF File	(74.80 MB) -- http://collections.mun.ca/PDFs/theses/Saunders_SheilaMaud.pdf
CONTENTdm file name	298932.cpd