Speakers: David Clarke, Sophie Parkes-Nield and Diane A. Rodgers

The recent revival of popular interest in folklore, from calendar customs to folk horror media, demonstrates that individual and community identities are interwoven with the perceived concept of Englishness, expressed throughout mainstream media, social media platforms and podcasts.

However, diversity of the content and the wider cultural context have yet to be captured or understood within the multiple identities that make up multicultural Englishness today. The National Folklore Survey aims to capture an accurate snapshot of the folklore of multicultural England, producing new knowledge, insights and understanding of contemporary English folk culture at a time when many individuals and communities in England feel what historian and broadcaster David Olusoga calls ‘a conflicted sense of identity’.

Funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council, the project is now in its second year, and the team, based between Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Hertfordshire, and Chapman University (USA), is currently analysing the results of the Survey, conducted by Ipsos in summer 2025 with just under 2000 people across England. This talk, by project lead, Dr David Clarke, co-lead, Dr Diane A. Rodgers, and Postdoctoral Researcher, Dr Sophie Parkes-Nield, gives an overview of the project and reveals some of its early findings.

Tickets £6.00 (£4.00 for Folklore Society members with the Promo Code–log in to https://folklore-society.com/members-only to get the Promo Code) from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/early-findings-from-the-national-folklore-survey-for-england-tickets-1980381952731?aff=ebdsoporgprofile. 

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