Waldorfschulen und ihre zukünftigen Herausforderungen – eine organisationsstrukturelle Betrachtung

Abstract

In today’s world securing the future viability of schools poses an unique challenge – this being specifically true for self-governing Rudolf Steiner schools. The following article discusses the results of the study “Zukunftsgestaltung Waldorfschule” (Koolmann/Nörling, 2015), which addresses how future viability can be achieved from a – thus far scarcely researched – theoretical organizational perspective. Based on a written survey amongst executive directors of Rudolf Steiner schools the future viability was analyzed by means of three main focuses. The focus on “culture and values” showed, that amongst others, the reputation of Rudolf Steiner schools is estimated well. Nonetheless, cooperation’s with local partners rarely exist and the culture of dispute and conflict holds large potential for optimization. A closer look at “leadership and management” revealed that the chosen model of school leadership did not exclusively determine a functioning self-government and that corporate governance lacks shaping in most areas. The final subject area, “learning and development”, illustrates that some schools actively conduct organizational and resource development, while others did not engage in such in any way. Hence Rudolf Steiner schools seem to be very diversely positioned concerning this aspect, yet the lack of both developmental areas could be problematic for the school’s future viability. We perceive these results as encouragement for all schools to actively begin working on their organizational school development, in order to structurally prepare Rudolf Steiner schools for the challenges of the future.