Waldorf Education Internationally

The Department of Educational Sciences at Alanus University collaborates worldwide with numerous Waldorf schools and educational initiatives for Waldorf teachers, from the USA and Poland to India.

A special feature of Waldorf education is its international reach. There are now more than 1,000 Waldorf schools and more than 2,000 Waldorf kindergartens worldwide. Over the past decades, the face of Waldorf education has increasingly transformed in different countries and cultures. While in its pioneering phase Waldorf education was more of a European export product, shaped even in its curriculum by Western cultural history, it is now increasingly integrating into the diversity of individual countries and continents and adapting their cultural qualities without losing its own identity.

The Department of Educational Sciences at Alanus University maintains numerous international partnerships with Waldorf schools and teacher education initiatives abroad. Its academic standing and research achievements are highly esteemed in the international Waldorf education community. For the past three years, a nationwide professional development program for Waldorf teachers has been held regularly at the Sloka Waldorf School in Hyderabad, India, attended by more than 130 Waldorf teachers from across India. Professor Jost Schieren (among other roles, Dean of the Department of Educational Sciences) most recently taught there from 7 to 12 October 2023.

Regular congresses have been held in Poznań (Poland) since 2017. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of Waldorf education in Poznań, the local Adam Mickiewicz University invited participants to an international colloquium on Waldorf education. The professors from the Department of Educational Sciences at Alanus University, Stefanie Greubel, Ulrich Maiwald and Jost Schieren, first led various workshops at the Waldorf school in Poznań on 20 October 2023 and then gave presentations the following day, 21 October, at the university colloquium under the direction of Prof. Dr. Renata Michalak.

Additional long-standing partnerships exist with the Rudolf Steiner University College in Oslo, the Waldorflärärhögskolan in Stockholm, the Center for Culture and Education in Vienna (an affiliated institute of Alanus University), the Didascali teacher education center in Sorgues (near Avignon), the Snellman College in Helsinki, and teacher education institutions in Budapest and Oakland (USA). Another close partnership with the Waldorf education movement in China has begun and is leading to a planned lecture and seminar tour by Jost Schieren in January 2024.