One of the myopic allegations and myths cultivated
by some of PLANS' outspoken left wing supporters, such as Peter Zegers
and Peter Staudenmaier, is that
"anthroposophy, as a central philosophical basis of Waldorf education, is right-wing oriented"
This is contradicted by the fact that people of all political and religious orientations can be found among parents at the c. 870 Steiner/Waldorf schools around the world (2005).
It is very possible that the majority of people interested in anthroposophy or in putting their children in a Waldorf
school actually tend to have a socially liberal and ecological orientation,
both in Europe and in the U.S. And in some cases, people tending more to
the political fringes, both left and right, also develop an interest
in anthroposophy and/or Waldorf education, indeed, some for and some against!
A study on the political sympathies of Waldorf
parents in the U.S. seems to be lacking, but one has been done in Sweden.
According to the
study [120K], about 40% of the Waldorf parents expressed political
sympathies with the Environment Party, and about 30% expressed sympathies
with the Left Party.
Ignoring for a moment, the demonstrated untruthfulness
of Peter Staudenmaier's writings as such,
which try to depict the anthroposophical and Waldorf movements as movements
with fascist and Nazi sympathies, and Waldorf schools as sort of "nazi
training camps" in the words of one casual reader of the PLANS site, the
Swedish study pretty clearly contradicts his allegations.
Go to the overview of myths
cultivated by "PLANS Inc."
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