Talk:Folk high school

Name of article
Considering the fact that these schools exist in several Nordic countries, that it is called something else in Swedish (Folkhögskola), and that there is an established English translation - Folk high school - wouldn't it make sense to move the article to the English name? / Alarm 06:11, 2 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Done manually - the edit history was so small anyway:

* (cur) (last) 00:27, 2 May 2005 81.226.28.2 * (cur) (last) 07:31, 10 Apr 2005 Egil (Mention Grundtvig, and first school in 1844) * (cur) (last) 22:23, 8 Apr 2005 Gaupepasser

That's not an English name! Two severe problems with "folk high school": I don't know where this term is "established", but it's not suitable for use in English as spoken by English speakers in English-speaking countries. First, "high school" in English is secondary school; it never refers to higher education institutions. Second, "folk" in English suggests "having to do with traditional customs". Compare German "Volk", which means "nation" or "people" (in the sense of "nation") in English. Recommendation: either leave a Danish, Swedish or German term, if that's what you want to talk about, or use an English term that says what the article is about, such as "Public Adult Education School". Wegesrand (talk) 13:37, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

I have to agree with Wegesrand above. The term "folk high school" seems to be used only by institutions that are using it in lieu of a better, commonly used English term. Even though "høy" by itself means "high" and "school" by itself means school, that does not imply that the compound noun "høyskole" corresponds to the English "high school". In fact it does not, and an ordinary "høyskole" would often be translated as "university college" (UK) or as "community college" (US). I would consider changing the title back to German/Swedish, unless there is clear evidence that "folk high school" is a widely recognized term (i.e. references to authoritative dictionaries). --Daofeishi (talk) 21:36, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
 * It seems, that the term "Folk high school" only applies for institutions in Scandinavia. The correct english name for the german "Volkshochschule" is "Adult Education Centre". --MB-one (talk) 17:51, 1 May 2015 (UTC)

France expansion

 * related talk (Lilliputian)

When was the first Folk high school founded in Denmark ?
Here it is told 1844 and the German article (see discussion) tells: 1830. Does somebody have any info regarding this ? Erkan Yilmaz ( talk ?, wiki blog ) 09:55, 23 March 2008 (UTC)

Style edit
I took a shot at cleaning this article up a bit, but I had a hard time because I don't really know the subject. I mainly worked toward a more encyclopedic style, but I also tweaked a few other areas. Most notably, I significantly trimmed the "France" section to remove most of the political information and leave only the information that is directly related to the schools. To be honest, I really think I still left too much, but since my knowledge of the subject is weak, this is all I feel comfortable doing at this point. The article -- particularly the section on France -- still needs quite a bit of sourcing. I've left a copy of this note on the Cleanup page for reference there. -- edi (talk) 16:52, 9 May 2008 (UTC)

Arbetarinstitut, työväenopisto
I see the Finnish työväenopisto mentioned in this article, with very little clarification. In Finland there is a clear distinction between folk high schools on one hand and työväenopisto ("worker's high schools", in cities) or kansalaisopisto ("citizens' high schools", in the country side) on the other. The former are usually independent entities while the latter are (usually?) institutions of the municipality.

Folk high schools are boarding schools with usually mostly young students. They have often had some main lines of education similar to vocational schools, but without formal exams – often in fields where no formal exams exist. The courses given are mostly relevant for the over all theme. There may also be weekend courses beside this main activity (and some folk high schools have abandoned the longer courses).

The työväenopisto/kansalaisopisto on the other hand give education mostly in evenings on a course by course basis. Typical subjects are langages, arts and handicraft, although anything may be taught. The students are adults of all ages.

Also the open university might be mentioned, with university courses for people not otherwise enrolled at any university.

I do not know how these distinctions relate to the Folk high schools in other countries.

--LPfi (talk) 09:14, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Swedish/German names
Note that the words "högskola" and "Hochschule" correspond roughly to the US "college", not "high school". In other contexts they denote an institution for tertiary education without the doctoral programs and research of a full-blown university, but with other programs ranging into the master level.188.100.204.101 (talk) 20:12, 16 February 2010 (UTC)

Folk high schools in Germany and Austria are called Adult education centres (ger. Volkshochschule). ??? They are called Volkshochschule which literally and semantically means Volkshochschule. So what's the problem? --Peter Gröbner (talk) 15:44, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Italian folk's university
I'd like that someone English mother language (but mastering well also Italian) would read the Italian link and add the content here, because it's a pity that such a noble and 'ancient' institution -and nowadays also so important- can't be known by foreign students interested in it! :-)--GianMarco Tavazzani (talk) 08:25, 25 February 2014 (UTC)

Secondary modern concept
I've linked to the equivalent British idea, the Secondary modern (a precursor to the comprehensive school, but still in existence in some parts of the country which retained selective education), but am unsure as to whether a section about that particular type of school would be relevant to this article. Does anyone have any thoughts? LS1979 (talk) 09:17, 25 October 2014 (UTC)

Birgitte Auestad
I removed the name from the strange sentence "Despite similar names Birgitte Auestad and somewhat similar goals". Is it the name of an author that someone wanted to cite, but put in the wrong position? Nikolaj1905 (talk) 15:06, 12 February 2018 (UTC)