Kate Attfield

In this perspective paper I propose to explore the remarkable humanity-centered education designed by the Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner (1861–1925), along with his legacy in the form of the Waldorf schools that still serve children aged 3–18. Steiner was a polymath who could have been influenced by figures including the Roman playwright Terence, a freed slave who valued “humanity,” as well as the 16th Century Humanist Erasmus of Rotterdam, who was in favor of humane education. International Waldorf education is now over 100 years old and Steiner’s focus on educating the human being in a healthy and integrated manner remains central. This paper provides an exploratory overview of Steiner-Waldorf education and offers a critical reflection on issues sometimes raised against its theory and practice. I have interviewed 43 Waldorf teachers from schools in Germany, the US and the UK covering their individual evaluation of human and humane-focused Waldorf pedagogy. The paper concludes that, given external government support, it can remain a visionary movement and a stimulus to other educational systems.

Kirsten and Kate are scholar–practitioners studying the people with whom they interact and operate. In this empirical paper, based on their auto/ethnographic reflections, they study some often-neglected circumstances and by-products of scholar–practitioner research. They review aspects of entering research situations with which they are connected, participating in them, leaving them behind, and revisiting them. Kirsten is an ethnographer, both working with and studying intentional communities. Kate is a qualitative researcher who operates auto/ethnographically in studying Triple X unintentional communities. This article arises from discussions of Kirsten’s and Kate’s field notes, which have led them to compare and relate their convergent experiences with one another. Kirsten and Kate focus on the physical culture of the environments in which they study. Some traditional boundaries like the isolation of researchers and communities are eroding. Kirsten and Kate care about those they study and continue to hold some responsibility for the lives of people they have entered. They attempt to narrow the space between theory and practice in recognising their interconnected nature. Civic mission is gaining increased currency for researchers and may form a signpost towards the future of research.

Triple X is largely unheard of: in global medical science where there is only a partial knowledge, and in welfare and community-based institutions which have virtually no knowledge of it at all. This article focusses on the unheard voices of Triple X families: on the reflections of ten UK parents on nurturing their daughters with Triple X throughout their childhood and into adulthood and the world of work. Layers of daughters’ individual characteristics, institutional bodies’ knowledge and preparedness to adapt, and centrally, parental interventions in daughters’ lives are assessed to consider these young women’s own autonomy and community citizenship as they consolidate. Using a Bourdieusian framework, and testing against a benchmark of cultural and social capital, the article assesses the position of families of varying social classes who are differently able to mitigate institutional inadequacy. But equally, the article looks into the notion of disability as a factor independent of the standard system of generational capital transfer. Granted that (as it emerges) they effectively live their lives outside the typical familial socio-economic structure, adult daughters’ individual abilities and achievements relating to their own growing social consciousness and contributiveness are investigated.

Rudolf Steiner’s international Waldorf education is comparatively under-researched for a hundred-year-old education movement which thrives globally. What is further unknown in academic educational circles is the specific study of the “feeling-life”, the middle period of childhood in Waldorf education, of children aged seven through fourteen. This article assesses the holistic nature of the Waldorf grade school, and its child-centered, creative pedagogy. Using work by Lani Florian and colleagues, the article scrutinizes the extent to which Waldorf education is able and well-suited to accommodate all learner types. Fifteen Waldorf teaching advisors and teacher trainers from the US, the UK and Germany were invited to assess the inclusive outlook of their Waldorf grade school. The findings show internationally and inter-regionally diverse and contrasting practices; a route informed by inclusive pedagogy sustains child development and leads to young citizenship. Recommendations are of productive collaboration between schools’ networks and for Waldorf educational studies to forge connections with the wider educational academic sphere, and to share their application of creativity and restorative and inclusive practices.

Within the education academic arena, there is almost no established research on the alternative Waldorf (or Steiner) education movement in the US or UK. This primary research investigates Rudolf Steiner’s philosophy of early childhood Waldorf education, and its child-centered and inclusive core. Ten kindergarten teachers in the US and UK educating children ages three through seven were interviewed on their values and practices, and on intrinsic notions of inclusion, which are scrutinized according to Lani Florian's inclusive pedagogy. Contrasting interpretation among practitioners on educating diverse learners emerge. US and UK Waldorf education appear situationally different, and yet the underlying educational ethos fundamentally remains the same. An anthroposophical understanding of the human being, and ‘the will’ of the kindergarten child who learns through imitation and play, underlies this far-sighted, holistic basis. Recommendation is for Waldorf early childhood studies to enhance transnational networks among themselves, and to make connections with broader academic educational clusters, in particular those on inclusion.

The further and higher educational experiences and consequent employability of women with the under-researched Triple X syndrome are arguably unknown. This research study examines their special educational needs (where relevant), and their negotiation of conventional educative systems, throughout the stages of post-compulsory education and into the world of work. The prevalent individualist societal focus means that education bodies promote their qualification offers for students to gain individual employability currency, in order to secure their own futures. Ten women with Triple X were asked to reflect on their post-compulsory education experiences, considering their varying developmental and cultural barriers to access, and their employability skill set against the background of the likelihood of their transferring this to a position of graduate employment. Findings illustrate the significance of socio-economic background and support network, as well as varying individual cognitive capacity and also health status in participants being able to varying degrees, to secure a sense of stability and contentment: yet no woman secured graduate employment. By way of a further conclusion this research discloses the systemic lack of awareness of the existence of Triple X on the part of educational bodies and employers, a problem which further research is needed to address.