Language: English

ISSN: 0519-0959

Language: English

ISSN: 0002-8304

Abstract/Notes: When paying tribute to the memory and legacy of Renilde Montessori, the youngest grandchild of Maria Montessori who died recently, the most fitting way to honour her is to celebrate her vision of Educateurs sans Frontières. This most inspired of Renilde’s initiatives gave new meaning to Montessori’s vision bringing us back to the ideals of San Lorenzo. Renilde stressed the importance of placing that inheritance in a contemporary context. She saw the Educateurs as educators without boundaries, ‘able and willing to go where their presence is required. Never to intrude, not to indoctrinate, but to help and encourage others to learn, to rediscover the wise and ancient plan for wholesome growth with which all humans are endowed.’

Language: English

ISSN: 1877-539X

Language: English

ISSN: 0519-0959

Language: English

ISSN: 0519-0959

Language: English

ISSN: 0571-1142

Abstract/Notes: This dissertation concerns the feminization of the Italian teaching profession between the introduction of pre-Unification schooling in 1859 and the nationalization of that system in 1911. By feminization, this dissertation refers both to the gradual assumption of the majority of elementary teaching positions by women and to a transformation in the nature of the position itself. Through an examination of educational periodicals, school records, government inquests, and accounts by teachers and pedagogical theorists, it argues that rather than the unintended consequence of economic constraints or shifting labor patterns, feminization was fundamentally connected to larger processes of centralization and modernization in the Italian school system. Following an introductory chapter outlining the major national, religious, and gender debates of the Unification era, the second chapter of the dissertation argues that the figure of the female elementary teacher became embroiled in the contest between local and national interests, furthering the drive toward centralization. The third chapter examines a subject generally ignored in most studies of Italian women's education: the impact of international and domestic pedagogy. The chapter shows that the development of an Italian pedagogy combining positivism and progressivism with a maternalist, child-centered methodology was both a result and a cause of the feminization of the teaching profession. The fourth chapter focuses on the divide between the secularizing nation and the entrenched Catholic Church, arguing that carefully trained female teachers were employed as agents of the encroaching State and examining the connection between religious education debates and women's rights movements. The fifth chapter is an institutional history of the teacher-training normal schools; an analysis of institutional and government records reveals that normal school feminization reflected the centralization, secularization, and pedagogical reformation of the school system in general.

Language: English

Published: Los Angeles, California, 2012

Abstract/Notes: This dissertation explores the evolution of Italian Fascist ideas of racial identity between 1923 and 1940 and contends that those ideas led to some of the most significant Fascist policies, such as the invasion of Ethiopia and the passage of the 1938 racial laws. Common belief holds that racism played no role in the doctrine of Benito Mussolini's government. On the contrary, from the very beginning of their regime, Fascists worked to infuse the Italian population with concrete conceptions of their national identity—their italianità—and its superiority over all others. The education of Italian children vividly illustrates the racial project at the heart of Fascist doctrine. One of the regime's earliest priorities was to restructure the national education system in order to more effectively inform the population of the ideals of the new Fascist order. The administration centralized the existing infrastructure and founded the new institutions of the National Organization for the Protection of Mothers and Children (ONMI) and the National Balilla Organization (ONB). Thus, the state embraced all aspects of the young Italian's life, from the cradle to school, on the weekends and during summer vacations. Contemporary textbooks, teaching manuals, pedagogical journals, and government documents reveal an early and lasting commitment to instilling Italy's youngest generations with a collective identity based upon inherited historical, cultural, and spiritual characteristics that resulted in a belief in racial entitlement. As the regime solidified its power, it initiated further changes to the education system with the goal of turning children into ideal Fascists. As it militarized the population and sent Italians to civilize foreign lands, officials created a more direct language that mobilized the nation's youth to protect the fatherland against its enemies. Such a curriculum was unavoidably racist in content, and when Mussolini legalized discrimination against 'non-Italians' in 1938, the pre-existing pedagogy allowed for a relatively smooth transition between pre-racial-law education and post-racial-law education. When Italy entered World War II in 1940, the values were set for Italians to wage a war for national pride and racial privilege.

Language: English

Published: New Haven, Connecticut, 2010

Abstract/Notes: Montessori is historically recognized for her contributions to early education. Her primary recognition derived from the comprehensive educational program which became known as the Montessori Method. Relatively little attention has focused on her background as physician, psychiatrist, and pedagogical psychologist, from which she developed a body of psychological knowledge which established the foundation of the well-known Method. Her pedagogical psychology was overshadowed by her pedagogical theory despite her secure position in the history of child psychiatry. Also contributing to the non-acceptance of Montessori's psychology was the psychological tenor of the times. In the forefront of the psychological movement in the early 1900's were psychometric testing, Freud's psycho-sexual stages, Thorndike's stimulus-response theory, and the emergence of behaviorism under the leadership of Watson, to name a few. This climate was not hospitable to Montessori's developmental-interactionist theory. In the 1960's through the research findings of psychologists and the availability of Federal funds to compensate the "cumulative deficits" of the disadvantaged child, interest was focused on early childhood education and consequently the Montessori Method. As psychologists embraced Piaget's developmental theory, resemblances in thinking between Piaget and Montessori were noted. While psychologists pointed to Montessori's developmental-interactionist ideas, nobody attempted to elaborate her developmental theory in toto. This study attempts to do so. For Montessori, the development of the child takes place in successive and qualitatively different stages, with each stage providing the foundation for succeeding stages. Within this framework, she clearly delineates cognitive, motor, language, socialization, personality, and character as developing through stages. Cognitive structures develop through the child's interaction with, and actions upon, objects in the environment. A thorough examination of her theory leaves no doubt that Montessori is a cognitive developmentalist. While at times she appears nativistic, and at other times an extreme environmentalist, her position on development is interactionist and constructivist. Montessori is historically recognized for her contributions to early education. Her primary recognition derived from the comprehensive educational program which became known as the Montessori Method. Relatively little attention has focused on her background as physician, psychiatrist, and pedagogical psychologist, from which she developed a body of psychological knowledge which established the foundation of the well-known Method. Her pedagogical psychology was overshadowed by her pedagogical theory despite her secure position in the history of child psychiatry. Also contributing to the non-acceptance of Montessori's psychology was the psychological tenor of the times. In the forefront of the psychological movement in the early 1900's were psychometric testing, Freud's psycho-sexual stages, Thorndike's stimulus-response theory, and the emergence of behaviorism under the leadership of Watson, to name a few. This climate was not hospitable to Montessori's developmental-interactionist theory. In the 1960's through the research findings of psychologists and the availability of Federal funds to compensate the "cumulative deficits" of the disadvantaged child, interest was focused on early childhood education and consequently the Montessori Method. As psychologists embraced Piaget's developmental theory, resemblances in thinking between Piaget and Montessori were noted. While psychologists pointed to Montessori's developmental-interactionist ideas, nobody attempted to elaborate her developmental theory in toto. This study attempts to do so. For Montessori, the development of the child takes place in successive and qualitatively different stages, with each stage providing the foundation for succeeding stages. Within this framework, she clearly delineates cognitive, motor, language, socialization, personality, and character as developing through stages. Cognitive structures develop through the child's interaction with, and actions upon, objects in the environment. A thorough examination of her theory leaves no doubt that Montessori is a cognitive developmentalist. While at times she appears nativistic, and at other times an extreme environmentalist, her position on development is interactionist and constructivist. In contemporary terms her "psychopedagogy" would be considered an action psychology, which basically precludes it from academic "respectibility". Her theory contains both strengths and weaknesses in light of present-day thinking; however, on balance, Montessori's theory is quite contemporary and remarkably ahead of most of the psychological thinking of her time.

Language: English

Published: New York City, New York, 1982

Abstract/Notes: This chapter investigates the birth and evolution of Maria Montessori's approach in Italy, from the turn of the twentieth century to the present. It delves into the different schools of thought that either supported or hindered the diffusion of her methodology, weaving private correspondence, governmental reports, and pedagogical writing to understand the complex relationship between the Italian educator and her native country. It also traces the trajectory of Montessori's student population in Italy, from its humble origins in an economically disadvantaged neighborhood of Rome to mostly private Italian Montessori institutions today.

Language: English

Published: New York, New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2023

ISBN: 978-1-350-27561-4 978-1-350-27560-7 978-1-350-27562-1

Series: Bloomsbury Handbooks