The Montessori Movement In Interwar Europe

This book explores how the Montessori movement developed a cultural critique and gained momentum during the interwar years of political turbulence. Drawing on archival sources, press material and Montessori's literary output, the book provides a multifaceted analysis of this significant educational movement. The first two chapters presents the scientific background, how Montessori's innovative method offered new solutions to age-old problems of teacher-pupil interaction. The following chapters focus on the social and psycho-pedagogical aspects of Montessorism, and how the movement's culture-critical message about the child's liberation was received and reinterpreted in the wider European public debate. The last four chapters shed new light on the politicisation of Italian Montessorism during the problematic Montessori-Mussolini alliance, 1924-1934.

This book explores how the Montessori movement developed a cultural critique and gained momentum during the interwar years of political turbulence. Drawing on archival sources, press material and Montessori's literary output, the book provides a multifaceted analysis of this significant educational movement. The first two chapters presents the scientific background, how Montessori's innovative method offered new solutions to age-old problems of teacher-pupil interaction. The following chapters focus on the social and psycho-pedagogical aspects of Montessorism, and how the movement's culture-critical message about the child's liberation was received and reinterpreted in the wider European public debate. The last four chapters shed new light on the politicisation of Italian Montessorism during the problematic Montessori-Mussolini alliance, 1924-1934.

Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was an Italian physician, anthropologist, and educator known around the world for her educational philosophy and pedagogy. Her work established educational environments tailored to the child where autonomy and independence are encouraged within thriving and respectful communities. The Bloomsbury Handbook of Montessori Education is an accessible resource tracing Montessori education from its historical roots to current scholarship and contemporary issues of culture, social justice, and environmentalism. Divided into six sections the handbook encompasses a range of topics related to Maria Montessori and Montessori education including foundations and evolution of the field; key writings; pedagogy across the lifespan; scholarly research; global reach; and contemporary considerations such as gender, inclusive education, race and multilingualism. Written by scholars and practitioners based in over 20 countries, this is the go-to reference work for anyone interested in Montessori education.

The Emotions of Internationalism follows a number of international people and institutions active in the Alps in the 1920s and 1930s, exploring how they understood emotions and how they tried to employ them to achieve their political and non-political goals. Through the analysis of a broad spectrum of unpublished archival materials in four languages (English, French, Italian, and German), this study takes readers on an evocative, historical journey through the Alps. A wide range of characters populate its pages, from Heidi and the protagonists of novels and films set on the mountains, to Woodrow Wilson and other high-level political figures active both inside and outside of the League of Nations, to the alpinists and climbers engaged in hikes and international congresses, to the many children involved in camping trips, to the countless patients of the sanatoria for the treatment of tuberculosis which for decades used to dot alpine villages and to excite the popular imagination. At the centre of the volume are people's emotions-real and imagined-from the resentment left after the First World War to the 'friendship' evoked in speeches and concretely implemented in a number of alpine settings for a variety of purposes, to the 'joy' that contemporaries saw as the key to navigating the complexities of 'modernity' and to avoiding another war. The result is a compelling overview of the institutions and people involved in international cooperation in the 1920s and 1930s, understood through the lens of the history of emotions.

With existing literature focusing largely on Western perspectives of peace and their applications, a global understanding of peace is much needed. Spurred by more recent debates and discourses that criticize the dominant realist and liberal approaches for crises in contemporary state- and peace-building, the contributors to this handbook emphasize not only the need to solve this eternal conundrum of humanity, but also demand—with the rise of increasingly more violent conflicts in international relations—the development of a global interpretive framework for peace and security. To this end, the present handbook examines conceptual, institutional and normative interpretive approaches for making, building and promoting peace in the context of roles played by state and non-state actors within local, national, regional, and global units of analysis.

Jewish designers and architects played a key role in shaping the interwar architecture of Central Europe, and in the respective countries where they settled following the Nazi's rise to power. This book explores how Jewish architects and patrons influenced and reformed the design of towns and cities through commercial buildings, urban landscaping and other material culture. It also examines how modern identities evolved in the context of migration, commercial and professional networks, and in relation to the conflict between nationalist ideologies and international aspirations in Central Europe and beyond. Pointing to the production within cultural platforms shared by Jews and Christians, the book's research sheds new light on the importance of integrating Jews into Central European design and aesthetic history. Leading historians, curators, archivists and architects present their critical analyses further to 'design' the past and push forward a transformation in the historical consciousness of Central Europe. By reconsidering the seminal role of Central European émigré and exiled architects and designers in shaping today's global design cultures, this book further strengthens humanistic, progressive and pluralistic cultural trends in Europe today.

A heavily illustrated study of the foundations and working mechanisms of modern communities.

The book examines individual and collective visions for the material world of children, from utopian dreams for the citizens of the future to the dark realities of political conflict and exploitation. Surveying more than 100 years of toys, clothing, playgrounds, schools, children's hospitals, nurseries, furniture, posters, animation and books, this richly illustrated catalogue illuminates how progressive design has enhanced the physical, intellectual, and emotional development of children and, conversely, how models of children's play have informed experimental aesthetics and imaginative design thinking.