Practical belief and ritualized order in the Waldorf school

Based on a year-long ethnographic fieldwork at a well-established Waldorf school in Sweden, this article explores the production of practical belief through the lens of ritual theory. The school in focus is a socially dense environment in which an incarnated orientation is cultivated through boundary work and shared ritual forms. The article examines how pupils, through ritualized practice, incorporate the school’s aesthetic and moral order in ways that not only enable them to act in accordance with the educational programme, but also allow them to perceive meaning and purpose in doing so. While order is incorporated through the rituals, by the flesh, the lived body also serves as a mediator for new inscriptions of meaning, sometimes challenging the traditional Waldorf instruction. Thus, rituals not only reinforce and stabilize order but also disturb it.