Abstract/Notes: Discusses the overwhelmingly positive evidence from experience and research which suggests that a multiage environment can be superior to one of age-segregated class levels. Illuminates the logic of educating students in mixed-age groups (called multiage) by discussing the academic and social advantages, the affective benefits, and the positive impact on both promotion and long-term educational goals. (SR)

Language: English

ISSN: 1068-073X

Abstract/Notes: La educación multicultural ha estado en el punto de mira durante décadas desde finales del siglo pasado. El fenómeno de la inmigración y los asentamientos masivos en determinados puntos de nuestro país, obligaron a las autoridades a cubrir las necesidades de estos nuevos núcleos poblacionales. De este modo, surgieron nuevas escuelas que poco a poco iban transformándose en guetos de un alumnado inmigrante que desconocía tanto la cultura como la lengua del país de destino. Estos centros educativos, focos de controversia, se han convertido en un reto para sus docentes que, implicados/as en su labor, han ido transformando la realidad para conseguir mejorar la calidad. En este contexto, situamos la “buena práctica” en educación infantil, donde una profesora con un alumnado en riesgo ha hecho realidad su sueño de trasladar la metodología Montessori a su clase. / Multicultural Education has been in the spotlight for ages. During the last decades of last century, the phenomenon of immigration and the development of massive settlements of immigrant communities in certain parts of Spain led political and educational authorities to confront and help in assisting the needs of these growing social groups. In this way, new school communities emerged but they slowly became into ghettos of immigrant students who, in many occasions, did know little or nothing about the target language or culture of their new country. These schools may have been seen as spots of controversy and they have indeed been a challenge for their teachers, who have been able to improve the quality of education through their daily work. Considering this context, we place the concept of ‘good practice’ in young children education at the core of this article by making reference to the experience of a female teacher who has made true her dream of implementing Montessori Methodology in a risk group of Infant students.

Language: Spanish

ISSN: 2255-0666

Abstract/Notes: As part of a national evaluation of Head Start, a comparison of school readiness and childhood development approaches to preschool education was attempted, but major methodological problems were encountered. It was not possible to find the study samples called for in the original plan, i.e. a child-readiness program of the Bereiter-Engelmann type, and a child development program that was a suitable example. A compromise selection of two Head Start centers included one that was child development-oriented, and one that had a modified Montessori program. A comparison sample was selected from a middle class child development-oriented private nursery school. The children were pre- and posttested on measures of cognitive skills, curiosity, self-concept, and spontaneous language. Individual child observations were also made. However, the original data collection plan was severely curtailed because of lack of time and testing space. The results of the study are not definitive but indicate that the middle class children were more able to benefit in demonstrable ways from a year of preschool education. However, the private program was judged to be of much better quality than the Head Start programs in the study.

Language: English

Published: New York, New York: Bank Street College of Education, 1969

Abstract/Notes: In questa prima fase della ricerca - ancora in itinere - si compie un’analisi storico-pedagogica del rapporto infanzia/famiglie/istituzioni. L’indagine si focalizza sulle trasformazioni dei modelli familiari, visti nella loro interdipendenza con l’elaborazione di nuove pratiche educative. Al riguardo, l’avvento del’900 si profila come un passaggio importante, che trova un suo esito nel volume di Ellen Key, Il secolo dei fanciulli. Proprio in quest’opera, la scrittrice svedese elabora una nuova idea di “maternità” e di “paternità” che pone al centro i bisogni e le esigenze infantili. La sua prospettiva diventa oggetto di dibattito, agli inizi del secolo scorso, sia in campo pedagogico, sia in campo femminista, soprattutto in merito al dilemma per la donna di coniugare insieme sfera pubblica e sfera privata, maternità e autonomia individuale. Secondo l’ipotesi qui evidenziata è in particolare Maria Montessori a raccogliere la sfida di Ellen Key, con il suo esperimento pedagogico della “Casa dei bambini”, in cui lo spazio domestico, “privato” si trasforma in uno spazio scolastico, “pubblico”, a misura di “bambino” (valenza estetica degli ambienti, cura delle relazioni umane, ecc.). [In the first phase of research it conducts an historical and pedagogical analysis on the relationship between childhoods, families and institutions, identifying family-models changes and their interdependence with the elaboration of new educative practices. At the beginning of twentieth century, Ellen Key wrote the famous book The century of children. Following the introduction of Modernity age, the author defined a new idea of “motherhood” and “fatherhood” which focused on childish subjects’ needs and requirements. Her prospective became item of debate both in pedagogic and in feminist fields, especially in regard to women’s dilemma on how to combine public and private life, motherhood and individual autonomy. In particular, Maria Montessori took up the Ellen Key challenge, in fact she made the pedagogical experiment of Children’s House, where domestic space became institutional space (settings’ aesthetic quality, human relationships’ care).]

Language: Italian

DOI: 10.6092/issn.1970-2221/1767

ISSN: 1970-2221

Abstract/Notes: In the modernization era, at the beginning of the twentieth-century, the preschool institutions’question became the core of the padagogic debate in the Italian society. A relevant contribution was given by the women’s emancipation process that brouhgt towards a modern concept of assistance, such as the overcoming of the idea of nursery schools only as places for safekeeping. It was underlined, in fact, their important educational function to childhood care. Exactly in that period, two educational experiences occurred, attracting politicians’ and pedagogists’ attention: the birth of Rosa Agazzi’s pre-school, expression of a mostly agricultural and peasant Italy, and the Maria Montessori’s “Casa dei bambini” (Children’s house), designed into an upgrading town planning scheme, in the degraded districts of Rome and Milan.

Language: Italian

DOI: 10.6092/issn.1970-2221/1523

ISSN: 1970-2221

Abstract/Notes: The article explores the educational value that Ellen Key (1849-1926), Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925) and Maria Montessori (1870-1952) attributed to children's stories. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century these three important authors contributed to the renewal of the educational theories and practices. They dedicated a part of their pedagogical reflections to the educational meanings of children's stories; consider, e.g., the many pages of Ellen Key on children's literature, the recommendations of Rudolf Steiner on the educational relevance of fairy tales and mythology or, finally, Maria Montessori's reflections on fairy tales. The article examines these ideas from a historical and pedagogical point of view.

Language: English

DOI: 10.6092/issn.1970-2221/6374

ISSN: 1970-2221

Abstract/Notes: This paper examines the thinking of Maria Montessori in relation to the contribution of other branches of educational science to the epistemological status of pedagogy. Specifically, it situates the interconnections between Montessori’s approach and medicine (primarily auxology and child neuropsychiatry) understood as a Naturwissenschaften, as well as the practical implications of this interrelatedness, within a heuristic framework that extends beyond the field of special education. Analysis of Montessori’s scientific output around the turn of the twentieth century is followed by a proposed outline of its present-day relevance, in terms of promising avenues of inquiry informed by Montessori’s initial ideas and educational work and recent neuropsychological research.

Language: English

DOI: 10.6092/issn.1970-2221/12161

ISSN: 1970-2221

Abstract/Notes: The pedagogical thought of Maria Montessori supports the multi-class as it is able to respect and care for the natural interests of children. From a series of interviews with the teachers of the multi-classes of some public schools in the upper Caserta area, it emerged how Montessori pedagogy offers valid and effective suggestions for teaching in the multi-classes. In particular, didactic continuity, heterogeneity, the teacher-director and the learner-actor, time management, reciprocal teaching represent the salient points of the Method embodied in the multi-classes.

Language: English

DOI: 10.6092/issn.1970-2221/12193

ISSN: 1970-2221

Abstract/Notes: In the period 1880-1940 the education system of italian-speaking Canton Ticino was seeing pedagogical transfers coming from Italy. In a first period, the peagogical élite although deied that these pedagocal ideas came from Italy, using the terminological (and ideological) construction of “Metodo intuitivo” (i.e. Pestalozzi and Girard as the only fathers of the method). After 1910 the pedagogical influence of italian New Education (Montessori, Lombardo-Radice) grew more because the general interest in Ticino for italian culture grew with the movement for Defence of Ticino’s italian identity. World war 1 and fascism brought the New Education fellows in Ticino into a deep dilemma: their pedagogical ideas and actions were accepted only if accompanied by a total distance from any official italian political position. This was very difficult and led at the end to a growing total distance from Italy, even if the pedagogical élite tried to avoid the complete end of any cultural contact with Italy. The end cames with Abyssinia war and World war II that led to a total isolation of Ticino from Italy.

Language: German

DOI: 10.24452/sjer.40.1.5052

ISSN: 2624-8492

Abstract/Notes: This article concentrates on the importance attributed to music education by three Italian educationalists (Rosa Agazzi, Giuseppina Pizzigoni, Maria Montessori) who, at the turn of the 20th century, despite their different didactic experiences, regarded it as an essential part of an education blueprint for citizenship, starting as early as childhood. / Il contributo si sofferma sull’importanza assegnata all’educazione musicale da parte di tre educatrici italiane (Rosa Agazzi, Giuseppina Pizzigoni, Maria Montessori) che, con l’avvento del Novecento, pur nelle loro differenti esperienze didattiche, la considerano una componente fondamentale nell’ambito di un percorso di educazione alla cittadinanza, a partire dall’età infantile.

Language: Italian

DOI: 10.6092/issn.2039-9715/7613

ISSN: 2039-9715