Rubicon study

A multi-stage study design is used to investigate whether the developments of children in middle childhood known as the Rubicon can be empirically verified. In a historical study, Rudolf Steiner's embedding of the rubicon concept in the context of developmental psychology, which emerged at the beginning of the 20th century, was embedded. A first phenomenological study asks what changes parents, teachers and school doctors perceive in children in middle childhood. The Rubicon construct determined on this basis was used to develop a Rubicon parent questionnaire, which was subjected to initial validation with parents from 30 Waldorf schools in Germany. At the same time, the current scientific discourse on middle childhood at the various levels of child development is being compiled in a scoping review.

A doctoral thesis deals with the analysis of over 600 children's drawings with regard to suitable indicators for the children's stage of development.