BEYOND FOLKLORE: VALUING LOCAL TRADITIONS, IDENTITY CONSTRUCTION, AND A SENSE OF SCHOOL BELONGING

Abstract

Cultural manifestations found within local territories constitute forms of expression, memory, knowledge and belonging that go beyond a restricted understanding of folklore as a set of legends, characters or celebrations associated with specific dates. Knowledge, games, festivities, food traditions, oral narratives, music, dances, crafts, ways of doing things and community practices constitute living cultural heritage that is continuously appropriated and reinterpreted by different generations. This chapter aims to analyze how the appreciation of local traditions in school practices can contribute to the construction of students’ identity, collective memory and sense of belonging, discussing possibilities for bringing school culture, cultural heritage and community knowledge closer together. Methodologically, this is a qualitative bibliographic and documentary study grounded in research on culture, tradition, memory, heritage, identity and belonging, with particular attention to studies connecting cultural heritage and education. The analysis also considers educational experiences in which folklore, traditional games and cultural references from local territories are used as opportunities for participation, intergenerational dialogue and recognition of local histories. It is argued that schools can broaden their cultural role when they move beyond episodic and stereotyped approaches to folklore and incorporate community knowledge into the curriculum in contextualized, participatory and respectful ways. The chapter concludes that recognizing traditions as living heritage can strengthen dialogue between generations and bonds with local territories, while also allowing identity to be understood as a dynamic, plural and continuously reconstructed process.