Steiner and Waldorf Education: November 2007 Archives

Much research shows that hiring processes based primarily around interviews are inherently biased against minorities, as well as a very poor indication of actual subsequent job performance. In the interview process, people tend to screen for the type of person that like to hang out with, rather than for actual abilities. This is why research has shown the interview to be a poor indicator of actual job performance.

It's a well observed habit that people tend to want to hang out with others who are most like them. Further, whites are the most racially isolated group in the country; because they are in the majority, a white person who doesn't want to hang around minorities can construct a life so that they largely don't have to. This is not something that minorities have the luxury of being able to do; when it happens it is usually the result of ghettoization. So minority applicants in an interview process run the danger of coming up against the Waldorf equivalent of a good old boys network, where the judgment is not on competence but on "fit", or “does this person seemed to be like the rest of us”. How much this actually happens in real Waldorf schools is an open question, since most seem so desperate for minority faculty that they give the impression they would probably hire any minority applicant they felt to be moderately competent. On the other hand, I'm not sure that public handwringing about lack of minorities on the faculty translates into anything approximating affirmative action in hiring practices. That would be another area for research. An interesting study would identify people who have been minority applicants at multiple Waldorf schools and interview them about their experiences. How did they find the application process? Were they offered the position they applied for? If not, what reasons were offered? What do they think really happened? If that could be matched from the school's perspective, that would be helpful. How many minority applicants did the school have? How did they evaluate them? And if they decided that they had a "more qualified candidate" and therefore felt that they had to give the job to the non-minority applicant, has the school considered this in the larger context of their oft-stated desire to increase minority staffing?

So what can Waldorf schools do to increase minority representation on the faculty (and thereby probably increase minority enrollment)? The first issue is to examine the hiring process. Then examine the challenges facing minorities in the country at large.Out of a study of the phenomenon the possible solutions will arise. If the stated goal is to increase minority faculty, and there is no applicant pool, then it is probably necessary to create one. Some form of mentorship/scholarship program is likely the only way to create an applicant pool that meets the formal requirements of Waldorf teaching.

So far I have focused mostly on the question of enrollment. The final factor is doubtless faculty. It would seem obvious that a Waldorf school with strong minority representation on the faculty will tend to attract more minority students, though in reality that would be a point for further research. A nearly all-white faculty as exists in most Waldorf schools today might act as a deterrent for minority families when they consider enrolling their children.

So how can Waldorf schools increase minority representation on the faculty? Here again a look at the larger culture is important, since there are plenty of organizations that say they want to increase the number of minorities that they employ. There is a large body of research on racial biases in hiring, and I would argue that a lot of that applies to Waldorf schools as well. First off there's a very small applicant pool to begin with. The formal requirements to be a Waldorf teacher include at least a bachelors degree (and often a Masters degree to teach high school) and Waldorf training. Since our society is so biased against minorities to begin with, statistically a much smaller percentage of the minority population completes college. So arguably requiring a college degree puts an extra barrier in front of minority applicants. Likewise the Waldorf training requirement can be construed as bias against minorities in the hiring process. Waldorf training is expensive and time-consuming, and there is not much scholarship money available. Since minorities in our society are statistically more likely to be socioeconomically disadvantaged, they are therefore also less likely to have the money and the time to be able to undertake a formal Waldorf teacher training. But even if minorities are able to meet the hiring requirements, there is always the hiring process itself. I will look at that and then make suggestions for change tomorrow.

In addition to the "Waldorf schools are no better, though no worse, than anywhere else in society" reasons that I outlined in my last post, there may be additional things particular to the nature of Waldorf schools that additionally work to discourage minorities from applying. This area, too, requres more inviestigation. One area to look would be curriculum.

Numerous people have commented on how the grade school curriculum appears to have a strongly western and European bias, especially in the history curriculum. Other people have denied that this is the case, but the perception seems to arise spontaneously with some frequency. In the schools with which I am familiar the Eurocentric bias is not nearly as pronounced as some people claim, but there is doubtless some validity to the concern. It is also important to note that the subject matter is not central to what makes Waldorf education; the pedagogy is adaptable to multiple different cultures, as the success of Waldorf schools in Africa, Asia, and South America attest. But it is and interesting question to what degree American Waldorf schools have adapted to the changing ethnic composition of the country. It seems to me that where changes have been introduced, they have tended to trail public opinion rather than lead it. Now I am certainly not calling for a complete overhaul of the entire grade school curriculum, but apropos the question of why there are so few minorities at most Waldorf schools, that may be an area to examine. Doubtless there are more.

Someone asked me recently why minority representation in the American Waldorf movement is so low. That got me thinking, and I have a few ideas. The Waldorf school of Garden City is the most diverse Waldorf school in North America (if by diversity you mean lots of different minorities; The Baltimore Waldorf School and the Milwaukee Waldorf Charter have more nonwhites in total, though they are all from one group). The reasons for Garden City’s diversity are doubtless numerous. However, demographics play a large role. If you pull out a map and a compass, put the point on the school and draw a circle representing a one-hour commute around the school, in Garden City you have 3 to 4 million people. That probably represents at least 200,000 children. If you further reduce the pool to only those whose parents could afford to pay for the Waldorf School, you still likely have 20,000 possible students. Among those 20,000, perhaps as many as 30% are nonwhite. That means the school could draw from at least 6000 minority students, should they be able to convince those student’s parents to send them. With full enrollment of 380 students, that's a big pool to draw from. The biggest reason why The Waldorf School of Garden City doesn't have more minority applicants is probably the competition from numerous other private and Catholic schools who are also trying to increase minority enrollment.

Now compare this to the Hawthorne Valley Waldorf School in upstate Columbia County, New York. Drawing from a one-hour-drive radius, the total number of potential students is barely enough to even sustain the school, and the applicant pool – reflecting the demographics and economics of the area – has virtually no minorities to begin with. So even if the school made every effort humanly possible to attract every last potential minority student in the entire region, it would still barely make a dent in the overall proportion.

Most of the Waldorf schools in the country follow one of those two patterns. Either they are located in a major metropolitan area (Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego) in which case there are lots of other private schools actively courting the minority applicant pool, or they are in rural or semi-rural areas that are demographically nearly all white to begin with, in which case they struggle with enrollment generally, and have virtually no minorities applicants in the community who are financially able to afford a Waldorf education.

That's my first thesis, my "back of the napkin" numbers. It would be interesting to see how this holds up under more detailed analysis. Refining the numbers a bit using more detailed demographic data might prove interesting.In the next few days I will look at some additional reasons why minorities are underrepresented in the Waldorf movement.