Language: English

DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.1990.tb02826.x

ISSN: 0009-3920, 1467-8624

Language: Italian

ISSN: 2421-440X, 2723-9004

Language: English

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: At the turn of the twentieth century, Western European governments embarked on anti-terrorist agendas, labelling certain ethnicities as undesirable for spreading revolutionary ideas and criminal degeneracy. Several educational experiments emerged intending to eliminate the so-called degenerate element. Academics rarely consider this influence within famous examples by Maria Montessori (1870–1952) in Italy and Janusz Korczak (1878–1942) in Poland. Indeed, the conflation of the two educators obscures that each held opposing views in this critical debate. Years of war and revolution in Polish territories had produced multitudes of orphans, traumatised children and child soldiers. Following Polish independence in 1918, tensions remained high between ethnic minorities and ethno-nationalists. Social pedagogues aimed to rebuild society by drawing on Polish communitarian theories on rights and conflict. Engaging with this history of ideas related to cosmopolitanism and communitarianism disrupts dominant ideas within debates on human rights and citizenship. This article challenges the usual depiction of Korczak’s philosophical position aligned with cosmopolitan ideas on children’s rights. Associated historical research reveals that Polish social pedagogy emerged with the understanding of human rights as situated, embedded and embodied within time and place. Social activists rejected utopian visions to embrace the local conditions at the time, including the violent realities of Polish society, where teachers were often revolutionaries and terrorists. The orphanages established by Korczak functioned as sociological research centres emphasising human rights and democratic ideals while aiming to influence surrounding neighbourhoods. This article summarises Korczak’s worldview by reversing a famous epigram – it takes a child to raise a village. Such children’s rights pioneers envisaged that following years of imperialism and war, their model institutions would grow into a nationwide network fostering democracy and multiculturalism on a broader scale. In the current global context of conflict and anti-terrorist agendas, these institutions serve as critical case studies of possibilities.

Language: English

DOI: 10.14324/111.444.ijsp.2023.v12.x.012

ISSN: 2051-5804

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: This action research project evaluated how a one-time parent education session focused on emotional coaching and social-emotional learning affected children’s independence in a small, private Montessori preschool. During the five-week study, children’s task independence and self-management at home and school were assessed by parents and teacher, respectively. Parents reported greater confidence in supporting children’s independence and emotion regulation following the intervention. Both task independence and self-management levels were high at school. While task independence at school did not increase due to parent education, task independence increased at home. There was a trend toward increased self-management at home following intervention, and two of the five intervention group children also showed greater self-management at school. Results suggest that even in a school where parents are educated about the practical steps of supporting children’s independence, teaching parents how to support children emotionally has additional positive effects.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2023

Abstract/Notes: The study was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of role-play as a means of enhancing the social skills of preschool students in a Montessori setting. A total of 37 children between the ages of two and a half to six years who participated in a five week study. The interventions were conducted once a week for four weeks, during which children took turns participating in simulated scenarios that mirrored their everyday experiences. After the role-play presentation, assessments and group discussions were conducted to evaluate the children's comprehension. The research data was gathered before, during and after the interventions. The researcher used checklists and observation records to document the number and details of conflicts, as well as the children's behavior and conflict resolution skills. The study revealed a decrease in both the frequency of conflicts and the level of aggression, indicating the effectiveness of role-play in cultivating social skills in children. However, the study also indicated the need for further research and extended observation to support new and younger children in adapting to the environment and to keep track of how effectively children internalize and sustain the skills they have acquired.

Language: English

Published: St. Paul, Minnesota, 2023

Abstract/Notes: The New Education movement was a remarkable coalition of national reform movements that emerged at the turn of the twentieth century. As a heterogeneous movement that was united only in its opposition to the schooling system at the time, its structure and boundaries in the UK have remained a matter of academic debate. This article implements the previously proposed idea of treating New Education as a social movement and analysing the networks between reformers. A social network analysis of the central 58 reformers suggests that the movement was initially divided into two ideologically separate subgroups, but that from ca. 1905 onwards the reformers were strongly interconnected despite their different interests. Thus, by focusing on the social structure of the movement’s core rather than its educational thought, the article challenges the assumption that the New Education movement was fragmented and characterised by tensions. It also furthers the discussion on the feasibility of social network analysis for studying educational reforms.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/00309230.2022.2095874

ISSN: 0030-9230, 1477-674X

Language: English