Rudolf Steiner Education and Waldorf Schools: Centenary World Maps of the Global Diffusion of "The School of the Future"

Résumé En

Three world maps of Rudolf Steiner education and Waldorf schools are presented on the occasion of the centenary of the world's leading alternative education paradigm. The three cartograms document the current global diffusion of: (a) Waldorf kindergartens (n=1958 in 70 countries); (b) Waldorf schools (n=1184 in 67 countries); and (c) the total educational entities of Waldorf schools and kindergartens taken together (n=3142 in 74 countries). The first Waldorf school, Freie Waldorfschule Uhlandshöhe, was founded in 1919 in Stuttgart, Germany, by the tobacco industrialist, Emil Molt (1876-1936). The pedagogical leadership for the school was provided by the Austrian New Age philosopher, Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925). The Stuttgart school was envisioned as a model school offering an alternative vision of education, and one which could be replicated elsewhere. The maps reveal that a century later, Waldorf/Steiner education remains predominantly a Eurocentric phenomenon, dominated in Europe by Germany, and dominated in the world by Europe. Germany leads the world with 565 Waldorf kindergartens and 245 schools, followed by USA with 154 Waldorf kindergartens and 124 schools. The maps bear witness that a century after the founding of the first Waldorf school, Emil Molt's initiative, and Rudolf Steiner's educational ideas, have diffused throughout the world, with Waldorf educational enterprises now established in 74 countries.