Projects funded by NORENSE
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Alumni study in the Nordic countries
The study is initiated and supported by NORENSE. The team leading the study consists of Jan-Erik Mansikka (Finland), Terje Sparby (Norway) and Leif Tjärnstig (Sweden). The study is done in collaboration with the University of Helsinki. It is funded partly by the institutions. It has received funding from NORENSE (2024, 100000 NOK) and the Pestalozzi…
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Article in RoSE. Waldorf education and anthroposophy – A literature review
Ruhi Tyson. NORENSE-funding 2024: 50000 SEK. Purpose and aim In a recent review article discussing postcolonial perspectives on Waldorf education (Tyson 2023a) it became clear that several contentious areas regarding Waldorf education have been extensively discussed in various scholarly and semi-scholarly publications. This view was underscored by a pair of recent literature reviews regarding theoretical…
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Waldorf Curricula in Progress – Collegial methods for continuous development
Terje Sparby. NORENSE funding 2023: 260000 NOK «Contemplative pedagogy» is umbrella term for educational approaches that include the use of meditation techniques. The area of contemplative pedagogy is growing. Some refer to a recent “contemplative turn” in pedagogy. Different associations worldwide, such as the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education and the Contemplative Pedagogy Network, have…
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All Education is Self-Education. Contemplative Waldorf Pedagogy
Terje Sparby. NORENSE funding 2023: 260000 NOK «Contemplative pedagogy» is umbrella term for educational approaches that include the use of meditation techniques. The area of contemplative pedagogy is growing. Some refer to a recent “contemplative turn” in pedagogy. Different associations worldwide, such as the Association for Contemplative Mind in Higher Education and the Contemplative Pedagogy Network, have…
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Article for RoSE. Postcolonial perspectives on history teaching in Steiner/Waldorf schools.
Ruhi Tyson. Article for RoSE. Postcolonial perspectives on history teaching in Steiner/Waldorf schools. NORENSE funding 2022: 50000 SEK Purpose and aim In a recent article Frode Barkved (2018) discusses views of history and history teaching in Waldorf education concluding that there is a Eurocentric bias in the development didactics that characterize Waldorf pedagogy. The purpose…
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Illustrated textbool, Biofilia.
Markus Lindholm and Monica Kjærstad. Illustrated textbool, Biofilia. NORENSE funding 2022: 227000 Summary There is an urgent call for phenomenological featured science textbooks for teacher training courses, practicing teachers and related professions. The goal of the textbook project Biofilia is to deliver an ambitious science textbook, to meet the needs for phenomenological approaches on biology.…
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Inclusive pedagogy in Steiner Waldorf education in Finland and Norway
Kirsi Neuvonen. Article as part of PhD. NORENSE funding 2021: 50000 NOK. In my article dissertation, I study the experiences and the implementation of inclusive teaching in Steiner Waldorf schools in Finland and Norway by conceptual analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA). The aim of the study is to find answers to the question of…
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Article for NoAD Nordisk Didaktisk Tidskrift
Leif Tjärnstig. Article for NoAD Nordisk Didaktisk Tidskrift reviewing the concept of Nordic didactic practices and research from earlier PhD. 2020. NORENSE funding 25000 SEK. The article will be based om the thesis of Leif Tjärnstig and aims to deepen the concept of Bildung that is used in the thesis and contextualize some aspects of…
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Special issue RoSE: The critical potential of Waldorf Education
Henrik Holm: NORENSE funding 2020: 50000 NOK. Last year (2019) Waldorf Education celebrated its 100th anniversary internationally. It became clear how widely this educational impulse is being realized and received. With this special issue, we are aiming to establish an academic discourse on how Waldorf Education and themes related to different elements of its pedagogical…
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Article for RoSE: Narrative Teaching. Multidimensional aspects of narration
Johan Green. NORENSE funding: 35000 SEK for an article for RoSE. Narrative education has a central position within the Waldorf Pedagogy, and during my almost thirty years as an active teacher I have always been fascinated by this method. Today I work with teacher training at the Waldorf University college in Bromma, Stockholm. When I,…
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Rudolf Steiner’s concept of history in light of his early philosophy and later esotericism
Frode Barkved. Writing a research article on «Conceptions of history and history teaching in Waldorf Schools, part 2». Funding: 35000 NOK (2019) Introduction In 2017 I was supported by NORENSE to write an academic article on «Conception of history and history teaching in Waldorf Schools». This resulted in an article published in RoSE, in early…
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Early Childhood Education pedagogy and 6-year-old pupils; Reform 97 and everyday practice in Waldorf Primary Education
Background and motivation The aim of the project is to bring forward research-based knowledge about everyday practice in Waldorf Primary Education. Research on the Norwegian Waldorf Education Programme (WEP) is scarce, and Waldorf perspectives on education are thus challenging to legitimise within general academic discourses. The project will offer an academic contribution to Waldorf Teacher…
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Book project – «Curiosity and wonder as driver forpedagogy and education»
Markus Lindholm NORENSE funding: 80.000 NOK in 2019 Background and motivationThe aim of the project is to publish a book tentatively entitled Curiosity based pedagogy (“Nysgjerrighetens pedagogikk”). The book will explore the cultural importance and value of wonder and curiosity, their historical roots and discuss how curiosity and joy of knowledge can be better maintained and promoted…
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PhD studies at Plymouth University: «Understanding and interpreting teacher-mediated education in Waldorf schools»
Helena SelsforsNORENSE funding: Totally 170000 SEK Background and motivationThe project aims to contribute to the debate about teachers’ profession and practice. In Waldorf schools the teacher is seen as a domain of knowledge, the one who mediates teaching through lecturing and story-telling. This practice differ from methods used in municipal schools where the teacher’s role often…
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Vocational education in Waldorf-contexts – a developmental path of the Waldorf curriculum
Ruhi TysonNORENSE funding: 20.000 SEK in 2019 DescriptionArticle: Vocational education in Waldorf-contexts – extending our understanding of practical Bildung Within the German-speaking Steiner-education movement there has been significant developments after WWII where vocational education has been integrated into upper secondary school. The most well-known of these is the Hibernia school (founded by Klaus Fintelmann) which…
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Development of project description for PhD-project at OsloMet: Musicality as potential for attachment in early childhood education
Frode ThorjussenNORENSE funding: 25.000 NOK in 2017 Background and motivationThe project seeks to explore the musical communication between toddlers and the caregivers in early childhood education and care centers (ECEC). Communicative musicality works as the theoretical foundation for the research. This theory is looking on musicality as an psychobiological predisposition for all kind of human…
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Research article: Tabula Rasa – The blackboard’s performative and unique materiality
Marius Wahl GranNORENSE funding: 37.000 NOK in 2017 (25.000 for writing the article and 12.000 for translation to English) Background and motivationThe article will be about the use of the blackboards in Waldorf education today. The blackboard still has a central position in the daily practice of Waldorf teachers. I find the topic relevant, because…
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Research article: Conceptions of history and history teaching in Waldorf Schools
Frode BarkvedNORENSE funding: 37.000 NOK in 2017 (25.000 for writing the article and 12.000 for translation to English) Background and motivationAs a Waldorf teacher through twenty years and as a lecturer at the Rudolf Steiner University College (Oslo, Norway), for ten years, the question of the relationship between the ideas and views on history coming…
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Bendik og Årolilja – The Ballad’s tale about the Circumstances of Love
Hanne WeisserNORENSE funding: 25.000 NOK in 2017 Background and motivationThe medieval ballad Bendik og Årolilja belongs to a group of Scandinavian ballads dealing with various aspects of love and marriage. These ’love’-ballads are about betrothal and courting, faithfulness and deception in and outside of marriage, clandestine childbirth and the murder of infant. The ballads are from…
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Exploring Bildung and practical wisdom in Waldorf education practice through case narratives: a framework for empirical research
Ruhi TysonNORENSE funding: 25.000 NOK in 2017 Background and motivation for the projectThe aim of this project is to discuss how Alasdair MacIntyre’s (2011) concept of a practice can be helpful in empirical research on Waldorf education when combined with a case narrative approach. It is especially concerned with the virtues and goods of…
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Eurythmy and movements in three dimensions: In which ways can they be understood to support the child´s development?
Maria Keller BirnbaumNORENSE funding: 37.000 NOK in 2017 (25.000 for writing the article and 12.000 for translation to English) Background and motivationEurythmy and remedial eurythmy, practised in Steiner schools for almost a century, would benefit from the further development of a supporting theoretical framework and the understanding of eurythmy´s function in a school context. Research…
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PhD project: Phronetic knowledge and action in the background philosophy of Steiner teacher Education
Markku Niinivirta NORENSE funding: 245.000 NOK in 2016 Background and motivation for the projectThere are no previous Ph.D. studies accomplished on the topics of Steiner Teacher Education or Snellman College in the field of Finnish academic research. Snellman College has strong links to the Finnish educational background through the Finnish national philosopher J.V. Snellman. Snellman’s…
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Waldorf Teacher Education 2017
Rudolf Steiner University College, Norway (RSUC) NORENSE funding: 200.000 NOK in 2016 Objectives for the project The RSUC institutional development project, Waldorf Teacher Education 2017, aims at developing an updated and contemporary teacher education based on core ideas, practices and values within Steiner Waldorf Education. This teacher education programme will provide relevant knowledge, skills and…
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Gender and Waldorf Early Childhood Pedagogy and Practice
Sara FrödenNORENSE funding: 50.000 NOK in 2016 Background and motivation for the projectThe overall purpose of the project is to increase the knowledge and understanding of Waldorf early childhood education and also contribute to the discussion of feminist pedagogies in preschool practices. There is a relatively small amount of research in the area of Waldorf…
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Group dynamics during playtime in Waldorf Kindergartens when 5-year olds are the oldest
Renate Krämer ØstergaardNORENSE funding: 100.000 NOK in 2015 Background and motivation for the projectIn 1997 Waldorf kindergartens got the permission to keep their 6-year olds in age mixed groups when the mandatory age of school entrance was lowered from seven to six years in Norway. Today, however, also in most Waldorf kindergartens the 5-year olds…
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Phenomenology of audial experience in music education
Torbjørn EftestølNORENSE funding: 80.000 NOK in 2015 Background and motivation for the project The purpose of my research is to investigate the relation between musical practice and meditative work in relation to perception, in the Goethean sense of developing a ”delicate empiricism”. This will be explored from a theoretical perspective in the current article (to which…
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Practice-oriented research into teacher education
Ruhi TysonNORENSE funding: 20.000 NOK in 2015 Background and motivation for the projectAn aspect of teacher training that has remained in need of further development and understanding is the issue of how to provide an education for those aspects of the work of a teacher that are either craft-like or virtue- and wisdom-based, both of…
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Complexity and change in Waldorf schools: a narrative study into perceptions of decision-making processes
Fabio BentoNORENSE funding: 100.000 NOK in 2014 Background and motivation for the project The objective of this study is to contribute to the debate about organizational change in Waldorf schools by analysing narratives of decision-making process told by formal leaders and teachers in one Norwegian school. Therefore, the present study departs from an organizational perspective…
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Education in time
Arve MathisenNORENSE funding: 116.000 NOK in 2014 Background and motivation for the projectEducation in time’ is an interview based Nordic research project studying time, timing and the experience of time in schools. Very little research has been done on time and time experience in education. Therefore, the interviews will cover the most general aspects of…
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Visions and Conditions – The history of the Steiner School in Norway and its development from 1926 to 2004
Anne-Mette StabelThis PhD project was defended in public the 31.of January 2014 at The University of Oslo. The project has been funded both by RSUC and by NORENSE. In 2010, NORENSE supported the project with 224.000 NOK and in 2011 NORENSE with 240.000 NOK. The study was undertaken at The Department of Educational Research at…
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The Praxis of the Waldorf TeacherAn empirical study of the interactive knowledge, ethics and didactic traditions in Waldorf teaching in relation to Rudolf Steiner’s view of freedom and individuality
Leif TjärnstigNORENSE funding: 150.000 NOK in 2013 Background and motivation for the projectThis is a PhD project placed at åbo Academy, University in Finland, started in September 2013. The research interest and the project purpose rests upon an assumption that the pedagogical aims and thoughts that stem from Rudolf Steiner have persisted until today and…
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How are the contemplative activities part of the school setting and which implications do the activities have for the attention and participation of the children?
Marie KolmosNORENSE funding: 250.000 NOK in 2013 Short description of the project/ Research questionThis doctoral thesis deals with how one can understand contemplative activities as part of the school setting and how it influences the participation, attention and well-being of the children in the subject teaching. During the last couple of years an increasing number…
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”I learned to learn from myself” – An ethnographic action research study studying the development of the language awareness while implementing a dialogic teaching method in the High School Finnish language and literature lessons – a PhD project
Eeva RaunelaNORENSE funding 31.200 Euro in 2012 Background and motivation for the projectThe aim of my ethnographic action research study has been my interest in understanding myself as a Finnish language and literature teacher and my actions in teaching situations in Lappeenranta Steiner High School. Specifically, I have aimed to improve my own pedagogical practice.…
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The spatial dimension of Waldorf education
Margunn BjørnholtNORENSE funding: 105.000 NOK in 2011 The project has explored the ideas of and use of space, rooms and architecture as part of Waldorf education and practice. BackgroundOver the last decade, major changes of spatial and organizational character have taken place in working life as well as in Norwegian schools and kindergartens. The trend…
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Vocational Bildung in action. A case study of the vocational education biography of master craftsman Wolfgang B.
Ruhi TysonNORENSE funding: 2012, 30 000 SEK Background of projectThe immediate background of the project is connected with questions concerned with the separation of general Bildung and vocational education. Especially the problematic understanding of manual techniques as machine-like and easily replicated and trained. The issues have been pursued through a joint conceptual frame resting on…
