Folklore studies (also known as folkloristics and, in the United Kingdom, as tradition studies or folk life studies) is the interdisciplinary field within cultural anthropology that examines the creation, performance, and preservation of folklore.

The term folkloristics entered academic discourse in nineteenth-century Europe and, along with its English-language counterparts, gained currency in the 1950s as scholars differentiated the study of traditional culture from the artifacts themselves. In contemporary scholarship, the word Folkloristics is favored by Alan Dundes, and used in the title of his publication. Simon Bronner uses the term folklore studies to describe the discipline's intellectual history.

By the late twentieth century the field supported international and national institutions, including UNESCO's safeguarding initiatives and the American Folklife Center, which align folkloristic research with cultural heritage policy. Contemporary folklorists investigate how folk groups create, transmit, and adapt beliefs and practices using ethnographic and comparative methods to trace cultural continuity and change.

A 1982 UNESCO document titled "Recommendation on the Safeguarding of Traditional Culture and Folklore" declared a global need to establish provisions protecting folklore from varying dangers identified in the document. UNESCO further published the Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2003. The American Folklife Preservation Act (P.L. 94-201) passed in 1976 by the United States Congress in conjunction with the Bicentennial Celebration included a definition of folklore, also called folklife:

"...[Folklife] means the traditional expressive culture shared within the various groups in the United States: familial, ethnic, occupational, religious, regional; expressive culture includes a wide range of creative and symbolic forms such as custom, belief, technical skill, language, literature, art, architecture, music, play, dance, drama, ritual, pageantry, handicraft; these expressions are mainly learned orally, by imitation, or in performance, and are generally maintained without benefit of formal instruction or institutional direction."

The legislation complemented federal preservation programs that framed cultural diversity as a national resource and linked folkloristic research with public policy.

The term folklore combines the concepts of folk and lore. Contemporary folklorists define a folk group as any community that shares identity through distinctive traditions, whether a nation or a family. This broader lens expands the artifacts under study to include verbal, material, and customary practices. Folklorists examine how these traditions circulate within groups and the contexts in which they carry meaning.

Transmission of folk artifacts depends on informal circulation within the group, often anonymous and expressed in multiple variants. This mode of continuity contrasts with high culture, which is canonized by elites and attributed to specific creators. Folklorists interpret how performances, texts, and objects gain relevance at particular moments while remaining open to reinterpretation over time.