Abstract/Notes: The historiography of child guidance has focused primarily on the United States, where it first developed before travelling across the English-speaking world. The rapid expansion of child guidance in the interwar years was enabled by private philanthropy, which provided fellowships to foreign professionals to study in the United States. This article focuses upon the transnational transfer of child guidance, the dynamic psychology on which it was based, and the accompanying psychopathologisation of child-rearing culture to a non-English speaking country, the Netherlands. First, it discusses the development of child guidance and the reception of dynamic psychology in the United States and Britain. Next, it analyses the transfer to the Netherlands. It turns out that the Dutch did not copy the American model, but adapted it to fit their conditions and created a more diverse child guidance landscape, in which educational psychology played a less important role than child psychiatry.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/0046760X.2020.1748727

ISSN: 0046-760X, 1464-5130

Abstract/Notes: This study investigated factors that affect access to the general early childhood education curriculum of 4 kindergarten-aged children with disabilities attending an inclusive Montessori program; it replicated with adaptations, components of a previous study on access. Factors included curriculum participation, engagement, type of involvement, and provided instructional supports. Quantitative and qualitative methods were employed to analyze video data of each child recorded during the daily open work period. The children in the present study exhibited slightly higher engagement and received more instructional supports than in the previous study. The general conclusions were that the 4 children participated in the Montessori curriculum to varying degrees due to a complex set of associated factors related to child characteristics, teacher skills, instructional support, and attributes of the Montessori educational approach.

Language: English

Published: Lawrence, Kansas, 2008

Language: English

ISSN: 0449-3486

Language: English

Published: Assen, The Netherlands: Van Gorcum & Co., 1992

ISBN: 90-232-2656-9

Abstract/Notes: This article considers the possibility that one of the defining characteristics of the New Education, as it related to children in their early years, was its epistemological break with rationalist forms of knowledge and its embrace of empiricism and positivism. It considers, briefly, social theories that identify a similar process at a societal level before examining some of the polemics directed against theories of education based on rational forms of knowledge and, in particular, Froebel’s system. This theme is then pursued through a detailed consideration of the child study movement in England and its promotion of an empiricist project concerned with the production of knowledge about the child which drew upon the emergent fields of physiology, educational psychology, education and statistics. It is argued that child study helped to create the conditions for these sciences to distinguish themselves from the older philosophical currents from which they emerged. Consideration is then paid to how these transformations reacted on child study and on the Froebel movement. The article concludes that a break did indeed occur in the ways in which education was legitimised and that through the arrival of a new empirically based, scientific approach it became more closely aligned to reforming impulses. Nevertheless, the old philosophical, metaphysical foundations were not vanquished as in a violent rupture but were articulated in a new dialectical synthesis.

Language: English

DOI: 10.1080/00309230903100965

ISSN: 0030-9230, 1477-674X

Language: English

Published: Amsterdam, The Netherlands: Association Montessori Internationale, 1959

Language: English

Abstract/Notes: The aim of this study was to develop and field test an instrument that provides an efficient and scholarly tool for exploring curricular beliefs of preservice teachers in the area of early childhood education. The Early Childhood Curricular Beliefs Inventory (ECCBI) was developed through procedures that evaluated the content validity of identified statements, explored the criterion and construct validity, and assessed the internal reliability of the instrument. Through a literature review, four predominant approaches to early childhood education (Developmental Interaction, Cognitive Developmental, Behavioral, and Sensory Cognitive) and four associated models of implementation were identified (Developmental Interaction, HighScope, Direct Instruction, and Montessori). Six areas, in which each of the above differed, were identified: the view of the child, role of the teacher, resources utilized, curricular emphasis, assessment methodology, and characteristics of the learning environment. The aim of this study was to develop and field test an instrument that provides an efficient and scholarly tool for exploring curricular beliefs of preservice teachers in the area of early childhood education. The Early Childhood Curricular Beliefs Inventory (ECCBI) was developed through procedures that evaluated the content validity of identified statements, explored the criterion and construct validity, and assessed the internal reliability of the instrument. Through a literature review, four predominant approaches to early childhood education (Developmental Interaction, Cognitive Developmental, Behavioral, and Sensory Cognitive) and four associated models of implementation were identified (Developmental Interaction, HighScope, Direct Instruction, and Montessori). Six areas, in which each of the above differed, were identified: the view of the child, role of the teacher, resources utilized, curricular emphasis, assessment methodology, and characteristics of the learning environment. A panel of experts classified and sorted a total of 182 statements, and 72 items were subsequently organized into an instrument consisting of four subtests corresponding to the identified curricular models. Scoring of the instrument included recording Likert-scale responses for each statement to a score key divided into four sections, or subtests, representing each curricular model. Scores for each section were added and compared. The subtest with the lowest score was deemed most representative of a respondent's curricular beliefs. Data gathered through field testing of the instrument with practitioners were used to explore further content validity through a factor analysis, criterion validity, and construct validity. Results of a second field test of preservice teachers and the results of the first field test (practitioners) were used to assess internal consistency reliability. Analyses appeared to support content, criterion, and construct validity as well as reliability of the 72-item ECCBI. In an effort to reduce the length of the instrument and to make it less cumbersome, results of the factor analysis were used to create a 24-item shortened version of the ECCBI. Six items representing each of the four subtests having the strongest factor loadings were identified as appropriate statements and were then organized into an alternative instrument. Data gathered through field testing of the instrument with practitioners were used to explore further content validity through a factor analysis, criterion validity, and construct validity. Results of a second field test of preservice teachers and the results of the first field test (practitioners) were used to assess internal consistency reliability. Analyses appeared to support content, criterion, and construct validity as well as reliability of the 72-item ECCBI. In an effort to reduce the length of the instrument and to make it less cumbersome, results of the factor analysis were used to create a 24-item shortened version of the ECCBI. Six items representing each of the four subtests having the strongest factor loadings were identified as appropriate statements and were then organized into an alternative instrument.

Language: English

Published: Tallahassee, Florida, 2004

Language: German

Published: Würzburg, Germany: Königshausen und Neumann, 1990

ISBN: 3-88479-423-X

Abstract/Notes: This study explored the effects of peer interactions on kindergarten children’s construction of conservation and conflict resolution knowledge during storybook reading. Previous studies have identified that peer interactions can support the meaning-making processes of children in social relationships and problem-solving, but little is known about whether the interaction with mixed-age or more competent peers is more important in supporting knowledge construction. Sixty-four younger children in K2 and older children in K3 with similar socioeconomic backgrounds were recruited from a Montessori kindergarten in Kunming, China. An experimental design was applied to explore age group and conserver dominance effects on conservation and conflict resolution. Children were assigned randomly to eight groups in three 30-to-40-minute intervention sessions. Each session had a different theme for the children to learn about conservation and conflict resolution concepts and a hands-on activity to practice and discuss. ANOVAs were performed to test group effects, while multiple regression analyses were conducted to explore individual variations in age and pre-test scores in predicting post-test scores. Conservation knowledge was significantly better among children who differed in age groups in the post-test, but differences were not found in conflict resolution knowledge. Groups balanced with equal conservers and non-conservers improved the best, suggesting that peer social interactions can facilitate conservation and conflict resolution construction. These results provide new insights for early childhood educators to support peer interactions and children’s development. Implications, limitations, and future research are discussed.

Language: English

DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2024.1253782

ISSN: 2504-284X