Scope of the National Folklore Survey for England

There are two research questions that underpin this project: ‘How have folkloric beliefs and practices shaped England’s social, cultural and spiritual identity?’ and ‘To what extent are ideas of nationalism and colonial attitudes informed by contemporary notions of English folklore?’

Our challenge is to capture an accurate snapshot of the folklore of multicultural England and its cultural value as a source of resilience and community identity, and generate new understanding of the impact of colonial and empire narratives on previous surveys.

Though folklore seems to be everywhere at present - in podcasts, on social media, in the films and television series and literature we consume - a thorough exploration of how that folklore represents contemporary Englishness, and the many cultures that contribute to a sense of English identity, has not taken place.

Our challenge in this project is to capture these new and shared experiences within the context of an existing corpus of Englishness from a position of diversity and inclusion.

Why England?

Jonathan Roper said in 2012 that within the UK, England is perceived to be a ‘land without folklore’.

One consequence is that English folklore is often perceived through the lens of colonial nostalgia and empire and does not incorporate the many ethnicities and communities in today’s multicultural society. This is demonstrated, for example, by the far right’s attempt to adopt and define notions of England and Englishness and the use of the English national flag.

This survey project focuses on England to redress this, by reflecting on the limitations of previous surveys and the major societal changes that have occurred since. We hope that the Survey will, therefore, produce new and much-needed knowledge, insights and understanding of contemporary English folk culture.

The University of Hertfordshire is the only Higher Education Institute in England to offer a degree in folklore studies (at MA level), and while there are research centres at other universities, including at Sheffield Hallam University where we are based, academic representation of folklore in England remains marginalised and limited. This is further reason, we believe, for this Survey to focus on the folklore of England: to develop robust empirical data that can be used by folklorists and other researchers to understand more about this nation.

That doesn’t mean, of course, that a similar approach can’t be used by the other nations of the UK. In fact, we are hoping that we will be able to work with folklorists in the other nations to do just that, once this project comes to an end.

Stage one

To ensure the National Folklore Survey for England is meaningful and provides the research community with data that is useful, we needed to define its scope.

Asking survey respondents about all aspects of folklore, much as we would like to, would be too unwieldy and nobody would have the time or inclination to complete it. We also felt other areas, such as traditional song and dance, have been well covered by previous surveys.

Instead, we decided to focus the National Folklore Survey for England on custom, belief, and folk narrative, and thought about these areas using the structure and categories used by Professor Owen Davies and Dr Ceri Houlbrook in their forthcoming book on the history of British folklore studies, British Folklore: A journey through the past and present (Manchester University Press) and augmented with one additional category of ‘supernatural folklore’. These are:

Coming together and taking part (customs, festivals and holidays)
Stories and narrative including legends and new traditions related to placemaking
Beliefs and traditions concerning the natural world linked to rising environmental awareness and climate change
Contemporary ritual and material culture including beliefs about lucky and unlucky objects
Folklore of the home and rites of passage, including traditions associated with birth, marriage and death
Folklore in film and fiction, the internet and social media
Supernatural folklore
Questions about perception of English identity

Stage two

Next, we will test the draft survey with focus groups that will show us which questions are unclear and what aspects of belief and tradition we may have missed.

The focus groups will include members of research staff and students from Sheffield Hallam University’s Department of Culture and Media and the University of Hertfordshire's School of Creative Arts, alongside representatives from Carnival, Joined Up Heritage and other community stakeholders in Sheffield.

Feedback from the focus groups will be incorporated into the survey draft and then we will deliver the survey to Ipsos for further evaluation.

Stage three

Once Ipsos is satisfied with the survey, it will gather a random sample from its Knowledge Panel, the UK’s largest online panel.

This incorporates ‘random probability unclustered address-based sampling’, meaning every household has a chance of being selected for the panel. This type of sampling is the 'gold-standard' in survey research and is utilised by the European Social Survey and the Health Survey for England, among many others.

Ipsos will gather responses from 1,730 adults living in England, stratified to ensure representative data by age, education level, region, gender, and income level, will be surveyed. The considerable sample size allows us to estimate population parameters within +/- 3 percentage points with a 99% confidence level.

Then comes the analysis. Firstly, we will conduct a factor analysis of folklore belief items to determine which of these beliefs group into larger clusters. We will then create indices of clustered items and attempt to predict those clusters using OLS regression analyses. The final set of planned analyses will focus upon the relationship between organised religiosity and folkloric beliefs and practices. We will use measures of religious affiliation, practice and belief to predict the clusters of folklore items developed via the second set of analyses. Using OLS regression analyses, we will determine if these measures of conventional religiosity are significantly associated with folkloric beliefs.

Stage four

Then it’s time to tell everyone about it!

We want our findings to influence academic, policy and the GLAM sectors, as well as the general public.

We will be publishing academic articles about the Survey, but we also want the data to inform a public engagement programme to ensure that the information reaches a broad audience. We anticipate events and exhibitions across the UK and beyond - so keep an eye on the News and Events pages, and do get in touch if you would like to get involved or have a suggestion.