Field schools are an intensive and crucial part of an education in folklore and other fields that require ethnographic methodologies. Students learn by doing: conducting interviews, documenting customs or activities, and learning how to respectfully collaborate with communities. In the best cases, field schools balance student learning with care for the communities where they take place. In this volume, veteran field school organizers Cassie Rosita Patterson and Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth make space for former students and community members to reflect on a program administered by the Center for Folklore Studies at The Ohio State University since 2017. The perspectives compiled here offer critical insights about the efficacy of collaborative projects, ways to balance needs of various stakeholders, and models for both institutional–community collaboration and pedagogies of equitable engagement.

Field schools are an intensive and crucial part of an education in folklore and other fields that require ethnographic methodologies. Students learn by doing: conducting interviews, documenting customs or activities, and learning how to respectfully collaborate with communities. In the best cases, field schools balance student learning with care for the communities where they take place. In this volume, veteran field school organizers Cassie Rosita Patterson and Jasper Waugh-Quasebarth make space for former students and community members to reflect on a program administered by the Center for Folklore Studies at The Ohio State University since 2017. The perspectives compiled here offer critical insights about the efficacy of collaborative projects, ways to balance needs of various stakeholders, and models for both institutional–community collaboration and pedagogies of equitable engagement.