Self-Responsibility as a Principle to Finance the Rudof-Steiner-School. An Analysis on the Situation.

Completed Research Project

Title / Titel: Self-Responsibility as a Principle to Finance the Rudof-Steiner-School. An Analysis on the Situation.

Original title / Originaltitel: Eigenverantwortlichkeit als Finanzierungsprinzip an der Rudolf Steiner Schule. Eine Situationsanalyse.

Summary / Zusammenfassung: A private school in Zurich, Switzerland, completly financed by unsolicited contributions by the pupil's parents, is experiencing severe problems in maintaining the operation of the school due to decreasing contributions. This project, conducted by Sozialforschungsstelle, examines the situation by means of the public good dilemma paradigm. A written survey was conducted. Samples were all the pupil's parents. It was found that the school is affected by the external economic development more than other societal institutions (i.e. more single parents than other comparable schools). We did not find a significant relation between popular variables found in the public good dilemma research and contribution. Exception was the believe in the system of self responsibility which can be seen as the expectation of how much other people do contribute. Surprisingly the relation was negative: The more other poeple are expected to contribute the more contributions. This finding is in accordance with the finding of Fleishman (1988), though. It was concluded that there is a strong need of filed research in order to validate the findings of the public good dilemma research which are mostly conducted in laboratory settings.

Publications / Publikationen: Artho, J.(1997). Umweltverhalten als kollektive Aktion. Eine Computersimulation als Bindeglied zwischen Theorie und Praxis. Koeniz: Edition Soziothek.

Keywords / Suchbegriffe: Sozialforschungsstelle, school, schule, Eigenverantwortung, self-responsibility, collective, kollektiv, cooperation, Kooperation, Zusammenarbeit, participation, social dilemma,soziales Dilemma, dilemma, Kollektivgut, public good, give-some

Project Leadership and Contacts / Projektleitung und Kontakte

lic. phil. J. Artho (Project Leader)	artho@sozpsy.uzh.ch
cand. phil. S. Jermann	sjermann@hotmail.com
cand.phil. M. Meier	michaela.meier@swissworld.com

Funding Source(s) / Unterstützt durch: Universität Zürich (position pursuing an academic career), Others
approved and supported by the Rudolf-Steiner-School, Plattenstrasse, Zürich