Staying alternative? Fragility and reversible exit in China’s Steiner schools

Alternative schooling is often presented as a departure from examination-dominated education. In China's Steiner schools, however, parents who had moved their children out of mainstream schooling continued to compare curricula, consider transfer points and wonder whether it might be ‘too late' to return. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in two Steiner schools, this article examines what happens after parents choose an alternative educational pathway. It follows how commitment is sustained, strained and reworked over time, showing how the horizon of the Gaokao, China’s National College Entrance Examination, entered everyday school life through comparison, hesitation and contingency planning. Staying alternative did not feel like inhabiting a secure outside, but like living with uncertainty. By shifting attention from choice to the ongoing work of remaining, the article contributes to ethnographic discussions of temporality, educational risk and the porous boundary between alternative and mainstream schooling.