Language: English

Published: Minneapolis, Minnesota: Jola Publications, 2001

Edition: 2nd ed.

Language: English

Published: Washington, D.C.: Bureau for Latin America and the Caribbean, Office of Development Resources, Education and Human Resources Division, US Agency for International Development, 1993

Abstract/Notes: Often considered dumping grounds for those who cannot function in mainstream schools, alternative education providers are seen as outliers in the provision of schooling. With schools as relatively stable workplaces, alternative education provision makes for a rich laboratory to further our understanding of the causal impact of schooling on a range of outcomes. They are naturally occurring experiments in schooling through interventions in instruction, curriculum and student cohort. Montessori school-based education in Australia is one such case. Experiencing a 31% growth in enrolments since 2009, they offer useful insights for different measures of education. A pre-requisite to such insights is a situational analysis of current provision. Drawing on an interview-based study with 20 Montessori school leaders, this investigation identified three problems and possibilities for schools working on the margins: i) clarity about what is their distinctive form of education; ii) building the collective; and iii) evidencing quality of provision.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/0305764X.2023.2189228

ISSN: 0305-764X

Abstract/Notes: Common methods of measuring discipline disproportionality can produce contradictory results and obscure base-rate information. In this paper, we show how using multilevel modeling to analyze discipline disparities resolves ambiguities inherent in traditional measures of disparities: relative rate ratios and risk differences. One previous study suggests there is less racial discipline disproportionality in Montessori schools, so we used our new approach, along with relative rate ratios and risk differences, to compare discipline disproportionality in a sample of Title 1 Montessori and non-Montessori schools identified using propensity score matching. Using the multilevel model clarified results from other measures: Discipline disproportionality was similar across school settings, even though overall rates were significantly lower in the Montessori schools.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/19345747.2023.2186991

ISSN: 1934-5747

Abstract/Notes: This dissertation analyzes the institutional frameworks that allowed for alternative sites of socialization outside of the parameters of the Franco regime, 1939-1975. This time period has traditionally been characterized as an era of political, social, and cultural oppression in which the regime tended to focus on a conservative fascist vision that stressed a homogenous Spanish nationalism and discipline. By focusing on the city of Barcelona, the capital of the northeast region of Catalonia, this study challenges the established discourses that have suggested that citizens did not have “choices” under an authoritarian regime. Local elites in the city of Barcelona focused on social reform programs that targeted one segment of the population that had the potential to alleviate existing social problems: children. By using childhood as a category of analysis, the dissertation examines how Barcelona’s elites were able to maintain some autonomy in organizing their own community. The community of Barcelona, however, was neither homogenous nor horizontal. The elites sought to “civilize the masses” as part of a larger goal of improving and modernizing the city according to their own standards and values. Through the analysis of the methodological objectives and pedagogical approaches of municipal schools and recreational activities, this study examines elite socialization projects for children within this localist modernizing agenda. The result is a larger social reform program in which some of the most influential people in Barcelona were able to roll back restrictions placed on the city of Barcelona after the Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939.

Language: English

Published: San Diego, California, 2022

Language: English

Published: Northampton, England, 2021

Language: English

Published: Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1977

Abstract/Notes: One key characteristic of Montessori classrooms is that children freely choose to engage with whatever they are most interested in. A common concern about Montessori is thus whether students will concentrate on their work throughout the day, and even whether they will actually choose to work at all. We completed 115 observations of children in Montessori Primary classrooms (ages 3-6), coding for children’s concentration and activity across two to three hours in the morning. The best fitting model of concentration across time was a quartic model, including age. This model indicated that 3-year-olds had two bouts of concentration, with a brief period of fatigue mid-morning. Four-year-olds showed an increased ability to concentrate across the entire morning, with minimal indication of fatigue. Five-year-olds showed a higher level of concentration than their younger peers, and were able to concentrate longer than the 3-year-olds, but this was followed by a period of fatigue. These findings are in line with Montessori theory, and suggest that children do freely choose to concentrate on their work. In regard to activities that children chose to do, we found children choose to spend a majority of the time engaged in work. Further, children distributed their time across all areas of the classroom, indicating that choice does not limit their exposure to any one area of learning.

Language: English

Published: Charlottesville, Virginia, 2020

Language: English

Published: Kingston, Ontario, Canada, 2012

Language: English

Published: Eagan, Minnesota, 2007