‘Tip me one of your ballads, why then we should drop into poetry’: Curricular framing of protest songs as a resource for citizenship education

This chapter explores the educational potential of studying popular song by examining examples of protest song archived for the project Our Subversive Voice? The History and Politics of English Protest Music.
The chapter proposes protest song as an expression of citizenship, and asks these questions:
What are the potential educational merits and uses of protest song in Secondary education?
Where could protest song be located in the curriculum and with what rationale?
What pedagogies might apply to the distinctive modalities of protest song?
How could study of protest song relate to national identity and citizenship education?
The educational possibilities of the folk song genre have been considered by teachers, education researchers and policy makers working in the field of English education for over one hundred years. This chapter presents examples of English protest song, exploring their relationship with citizenship education and how they might be framed in curricula English and first language (L1) l