The central aim of my thesis is to compare the objectives of the concept of Waldorf education since the foundation of the education until the present time. At the beginning the thesis deals with Rudolf Steiner, who founded thiseducational system almost one hundred years ago. Here its aim is to represent the basic ideas of Steiner, which later served as a basis of Waldorf education and became popular worldwide. Development of Waldorf schools worldwide, especially in the Czech Republic, is another part of the thesis. Furthermore, I compare the aims of Waldorf educational concept at the beginning and today. I describe changes that have occurred mainly in the Czech Republic, but I could not omit changes abroad. In my thesis I try to capture the positives and negatives of Waldorf schools compared to traditional schools.

The thesis deals with educational methods as a central element of the educational process as well as one of the original concepts of work in the Salesian youth centres from the standpoint of leisure studies. It is based on a qualitative research conceived as a content analysis of project documents of eight chosen youth centres. In the introduction, the concepts used are delimited, the problematics of Salesian youth centres in the Czech Republic and of educational methods practised there is theoretically presented. In the second part, the object, methods, process and results of the research are described. The other three parts are a synthesis of the knowledge gained in the analysis of the texts, complemented with information from other documents. These three parts describe thoroughly the concepts of education in Salesian youth centres (subjects, objectives, means, organisation forms and methods of education). In the crucial fifth part, treating educational methods, the lack of due attention to the educational methods in the examined documents is noticed.