Mission and Philosophy
The mission of the Folk Education Association of America is to identify, support, and facilitate community-based, learner-led education as a strategic tool for community organizing.
We use the term people’s education as an umbrella to include the many traditions of peer education that allow community members to work together to critically analyze oppressive systems, build a knowledge base, and apply this knowledge to create alternative possibilities for institutions that shape our lives. We believe that this democratic method of analysis and action should be one basis of organizing, and we focus our work on supporting this education. This process entails “participants,” “learners,” or “constituents” being seen as leaders, collectively finding ways to use their voices and actions for social change. People’s education, by its nature, is applied research that grows directly out of people’s real life situations.
Rather than focusing on a single issue area, our work seeks to support this type of political education as a tool in a range of community initiatives, including increased economic equality, workers’ rights, work against racism and sexism, as well as alternatives to environmental degradation, environmental racism, militarism, and the weakening power of people’s voices in the face of unaccountable politicians and corporations.
Board of Directors
Mary Cattani, CO-Chair
Center for University Programs Abroad
Amherst, MA
Chris Spicer
UMass Labor/Management Workplace Education Program
Amherst, MA
Ben Williams
Union Graduate Institute
Plainfield, VT
Honorary Founders
Kay (Kathryn) Parke
Black Mountain, NC
John Ramsay
University City, MO