A demanding school: schooling strategies in Waldorf institutions

Abstract

This article discusses the schooling strategies of culturally privileged family groups based on analyzing school choice processes for their offspring. The field research was conducted in Florianópolis/State of Santa Catarina between 2017 and 2019. The material consisted of 14 interviews with parents who have their children enrolled in one of the seven schools investigated, eight interviews with teachers from the institutions, and the participant observation of a set of 15 school events. The main objective was to study the relationship between the social and cultural conditioning factors of families and the ways of schooling their children, using Waldorf institutions as empirical grounds. The main conclusions point to the importance of family social capital throughout the process of school choice, and of dispositions compatible with the prescriptions of Waldorf Pedagogy, emphasizing a very high investment of time and energy in the schooling of the children and interactions with the institution.