Alternative education and the effect of on the social change: "The case of waldorf schools "

Abstract

'Modernism' emerged in the late 17th century from the internal dynamics and social factors of Europe. With this new movement almost all aspects of social life is standardized, synchronized and centralized. Work, on the other hand, organized around the principles of concentration and specialization. Modern education was also shaped by those principles. In this process, education is instrumentalised as the most effective factor for social change. Both a necessity and a result of modern society, 'modern education' and its prominent institutions 'schools' are formulated as instruments for social change and social control. Education and school are also utilized as vehicles for the transfer of state's ideology. This new system of modern education can be named as 'mainstream education'. Along with the concepts of individual, democracy, difference, moral values and multiculturalism, alternative education, came to the forefront as an opponent view to mainstream education. In contrast to modern education's unified principles, alternative education values individual and societal differences and intends to provide education based on different needs. With this alternative approach of education the relation between education and social change moved to a different level. In this vein, purpose of the study is both to discuss alternative education's development and main principles and to analyze one of the most unique and widely accepted examples of alternative education, "Waldorf Schools". This paper is based on literature review and participant observation technique.