Language: English

ISSN: 1054-0040

Language: Italian

Published: Trento, Italy: Erickson, 2019

ISBN: 978-88-590-2042-4 88-590-2042-5

Abstract/Notes: Book review of: Erica Moretti, "The Best Weapon for Peace. Maria Montessori, Education, and Children’s Rights" (The University of Wisconsis Press, 2021). Included in a special monograph issue of the journal ("Scritture. Teorie e Prassi della Scrittura tra Filosofia, Scienza e Comunicazione").

Language: Italian

ISSN: 2036-4938

Language: English

ISSN: 1054-0040

Language: English

ISSN: 1054-0040

Abstract/Notes: International Congress Montessori Europe, October, 2005, Gothenburg, Sweden

Language: English

ISSN: 1470-8647

Abstract/Notes: The Italian educator and physician Maria Montessori (1870–1952) is best known for the teaching method that bears her name. She was also a lifelong pacifist, although historians tend to consider her writings on this topic as secondary to her pedagogy. In The Best Weapon for Peace, Erica Moretti reframes Montessori’s pacifism as the foundation for her educational activism, emphasizing her vision of the classroom as a gateway to reshaping society. Montessori education offers a child-centered learning environment that cultivates students’ development as peaceful, curious, and resilient adults opposed to war and invested in societal reform.   Using newly discovered primary sources, Moretti examines Montessori’s lifelong pacifist work, including her ultimately unsuccessful push for the creation of the White Cross, a humanitarian organization for war-affected children. Moretti shows that Montessori’s educational theories and practices would come to define chilren’s rights once adopted by influential international organizations, including the United Nations. She uncovers the significance of Montessori’s evolving philosophy of peace and early childhood education within broader conversations about internationalism and humanitarianism.

Language: English

Published: Madison, Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin Press, 2021

Edition: 1st edition

ISBN: 978-0-299-33310-2

Series: George L. Mosse Series in the History of European Culture, Sexuality, and Ideas

Abstract/Notes: The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child contains specific provisions on parent–child relations and parenting, but these provisions can be described as elusive. Furthermore, the Convention does not explicitly specify a children’s-rights-friendly parenting style. On the other hand, there is a disconnect between research on children’s rights and parenting styles. Based on the insights of the meta-theoretical critical realist approach, this paper argues that universal human flourishing is inconceivable without the development of a children’s-rights-friendly parenting style. It is argued that the Convention’s provisions on parent–child relations can be adapted to the perceptions of average parents, especially living in paternalistic societies, by adapting the conceptualizations of parenting styles developed by Baumrind and Lakoff. Overall, research on children’s rights, supported by literature on children’s-rights-friendly parenting, can show that children’s rights do not alienate parental rights and responsibilities. Instead, children’s rights give appropriate direction to parental authority and responsibility to realize the child’s well-being.

Language: English

DOI: 10.3390/socsci12010022

ISSN: 2076-0760

Abstract/Notes: Erica Moretti, a professor of Italian at New York’s Fashion Institute of Technology, authored a recent intellectual biography of Maria Montessori, The Best Weapon for Peace: Maria Montessori, Education, and Children’s Rights. In this book, Moretti writes in conversation with fellow European researchers and builds on their work to present this English-language examination of Montessori’s pacifism that places her as a central figure in 20th-century global humanitarianism, disaster relief, peace activism, and social reform.

Language: English

DOI: 10.17161/jomr.v8i1.17113

ISSN: 2378-3923

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2023.2172351

ISSN: 0030-9230, 1477-674X