A state-independent education for citizenship? : Assessing students in Swedish comprehensive and Steiner Waldorf schools on questions of civic and moral development

• In the wake of globalisation, multiculturalism and the marketisation of schools the education-for-citizenship-question in relation to state and independent schools seems increasingly relevant. This paper is based on a comparison of the civic and moral development of students in Swedish state and Steiner Waldorf schools. The aim of the study was to evaluate the possible differences between the two types of schools regarding their effects on the civic and moral development of students. The study employed both qualitative and quantitative analyses of data from two different surveys and a strategic sampling of schools. In the first survey, the student sample was a cohort of pupils from grade 9 and from the last grade of the upper secondary school (grade 12 in Steiner Waldorf schools). The qualitative analyses were based on a responsive evaluation approach; that is, students were confronted with problems to which there were no given or correct answers. The qualitative data were analysed inductively and thematically. In the second survey, grade 9 students from Steiner Waldorf and state schools were compared regarding democratic attitudes, values and opinions about their school and their teachers. These data were only quantitative. Results of the two surveys showed some significant differences between students from the two school systems. The most striking result of the comparisons concerned the differences between the younger and the older students in their attitudes to social and moral questions. In the state schools, the interest and engagement in social and moral questions were approximately the same in both age-groups, but in Steiner Waldorf schools the older students showed more interest and engagement in social and moral questions. The Steiner Waldorf students also showed more positive attitudes already in grade 9. This result raises the question whether the pedagogical approach of Steiner Waldorf schools has more positive effects on moral and civic development

Ämnesord

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap -- Pedagogik (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences -- Pedagogy (hsv//eng)

Nyckelord

Pedagogy

Pedagogik

Education

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