In the UK people have to find their own way through the folk maze. I can't speak for the present day but as someone born in the late 50s my introduction to folk was throught the half-arsed but well meaning attempts to get country dancing on the curriculum (stripping the willow and other comic nightmares) and the BBC schools broadcasts (cut glass classically trained vowels intoning Child ballads).

Pub folk consisted of - to use a broad but well placed brush - drink addled amateurs singing in a way they hope their great grandparents might have to others on the same nostalgia trip. Better stuff sometimes made its way onto John Peel's programme or the discerning could hang around the few specialist shops for tips.

The very few clubs I attended were replete by Mary Hopkins clones doing folk-lite by the early 70s or members out puritan-ing each other much as bird watchers might tick off near-extinct varieties they'd seen.

For the ordinary person folk was a complete irrelevance: maxi or mini skirts, a few Jesus freaks, grumpy old men. About as far from it's community routes as it's possible to imagine.

IMO folk music has survived despite folk clubs, not because of them.