In general, ethnopedagogy could be presented as a history and theory of popular (natural, ordinary, informal, non-school, traditional) education. Ethnopedagogy is the science of the empirical experience of ethnic groups in the upbringing and education of children, on the moral, ethical and aesthetic views on the primordial values ​​of a family, clan, tribe, nationality, nation. Ethnopedagogy explains folk pedagogy and offers ways of its use in modern conditions, collects and explores the experience of ethnic groups, based on the centuries-old, naturally developing combination of folk traditions. The subject area of ​​ethnopedagogy does not remain unchanged: the tasks are formed and refined depending on changes in the social order associated with the movement of public self-consciousness.

Ethnopedagogy studies the process of social interaction and social influence, in the course of which a personality is learned and developed that assimilates social norms, values ​​and experience; collects and systematizes popular knowledge about the upbringing and education of children, popular wisdom, as reflected in religious teachings, fairy tales, tales, epic tales, songs, riddles, proverbs and sayings, games, toys, etc., in a family and community way, life, traditions as well as philosophical and ethical, pedagogical thoughts and ideas, i.e. the whole pedagogical potential that influences the process of historical and cultural personality formation.
Outstanding teachers of the past paid much attention to studying the pedagogical views of the people and their pedagogical experience. Classical teachers believed that folk pedagogy enriches the science of education, serves as its support and foundation. Ya.A. Komensky, on the basis of generalizing the experience of home education in labor families, put forward and developed the idea of ​​a “mother school”, the goal of which is to raise all families to the level of better families, where education is the most sensible education. In justifying the principle of nature-conformity, a great teacher also took into account popular experience. Some didactic rules are given to them in the form of folk aphorisms, and in some cases folk aphorisms make up some element of didactic provisions. It is significant that the father of pedagogical science began his educational activities as a collector of works of oral creativity of the Czech people, as a researcher of its traditions and customs. The first work he conceived was the Treasury of the Czech Language, in which he dreamed of collecting everything — fine granites of words, pearls of sayings, subtle harmonies of expressions and turns of speech. And the miracle of miracles of folk pedagogy - “The wisdom of the old Czechs” ?!
Pestalozzi in his works “How Gertrude Teaches His Children”, “A Book for Mothers”, “Lingard and Gertrude” gives pedagogical conclusions in the form of folk pedagogy, as a result of summarizing the pedagogical experience of an uneducated peasant family; as the realization of his dream of a school that would meet the needs of the people. Pestalozzi all the time appeals to the popular pedagogical experience and popular views on education. Father's house he calls the school of morals. In his opinion, the folk school should draw on the means of education in the very life of the people.
Folk pedagogy KD Ushinsky considered one of the most important factors, under the influence of which evolved the domestic pedagogical science. He expressed the most important and the most important for the whole pedagogical science: “The people have their own specific educational system ... Only national education is a living organ in the historical process of national development.” The tales and stories of Ushinsky are the best example of the use of folk pedagogy in education both in the family and in the school. Folk pedagogy is not science, but the subject matter of ethnopedagogy.
In folk pedagogy, the lively experience of education prevails. Folk pedagogy, reflecting a certain level of pedagogical knowledge, a specific historical stage in the spiritual progress of mankind, serves as the basis on which pedagogical science arose and developed. But later, as the emergence of fiction did not destroy oral creativity, so the pedagogical science did not completely push out the pedagogical views of the people from the daily life of the people. Pedagogical science and folk pedagogy entered into complex interactions with each other and mutually favored the development of each other, creating a single space that can be called pedagogical culture.
The people from time immemorial has developed its own, original moral structure, its own spiritual culture. All nations had many customs and traditions ennobling the life of the working people. They manifested themselves both in relation to nature, and in the poetry of agricultural labor, in oral folk art, and in amazing folk crafts, and in the beauty of clothing, and in Orthodox laws of hospitality, and in good customs of good taste and rules of decency.
The foundations of the people, especially the old village life, should not be idealized: there is a lot of controversial, gloomy, black, hardened life in them. These contradictions, generated by historical conditions, left their imprint on the popular pedagogical traditions. However, the spiritual life of the people has always been determined by work, spiritual talent and humanity, it was they who contributed to the education of truly national characters. For example, there is a lot of sense in the thousand-year-old Chuvash tradition, when only the one who does unloved work with love is called industrious.
Reducing the difference between town and country does not mean the destruction of the spiritual traditions of the village, among which the tradition of educating the younger generation has always occupied an important place. Successful development of culture and the system of public education is possible only on the natural, centuries-old foundation of popular traditions. Pedagogical science and practice, ignoring the collective pedagogical experience of the people, cannot become an essential element of the mass pedagogical culture.