Eighteenth International Conference on New Directions in the Humanities

Abstract

The first Steiner/Waldorf School was established in 1919 in Stuttgart Germany by the industrialist, Emil Molt, and the humanist philosopher and social reformer, Dr Rudolf Steiner. By the centenary year of 2019, the Steiner Education movement has grown to around 1,150 Waldorf Schools, and over 1,800 Waldorf Kindergartens established in over sixty countries. This paper examines and analyses how the initial impulse of Steiner Education has grown over the last century to become a worldwide alternative movement in education. The author documents and compares the growth and development of Waldorf schools and Steiner-inspired educational institutions around the world, and discusses the extent to which the original underpinning philosophy has been maintained against the contexts and challenges of contemporary global trends in education.