Problematizing child-centeredness: Discourses of control in Waldorf education

Abstract

Contributing to recent work in the critical sociology of childhood, this article presents an ethnographic and discursive analysis of the multitude of cultural meanings associated with child-centeredness in US American early childhood education. Specifically, the article focuses on Waldorf education, a private educational alternative focused on “protecting childhood” from the perceived dangers of modern society. Although marketed as an alternative to the standardized and testing-laden environment of public education, the Waldorf philosophy has much in common with dominant US American ways of constructing childhood that reifies a Western, White, middle-class protected childhood as the most legitimate and healthy context of development. However, being “child-centered” does not necessarily mean the liberation of the child from regulatory discourses and practices; in fact, child-centeredness can often function to shape children in specific, adult-sanctioned ways. Instead, I argue, the field could benefit from a move toward discourses and practices of child liberation.