Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10648-019-09483-3

ESSAY

Shunned and Admired: Montessori, Self-Determination,

and a Case for Radical School Reform

Angeline S. Lillard 1

Published online: 26 A pril 2019

# The Author(s) 2019

Abstract
School reform is an important national and international concern. The Montessori alternative
school system is unique in that it is well-aligned with the science of healthy development and
learning, has strong social–emotional and academic outcomes, is virtually unchanged in over a
century, can be applied across all the school years, and still attracts considerable attention and
allegiance—yet it remains Bon the margins^ (Whitescarver and Cossentino Teachers College
Record, 110, 2571–2600, 2008) of the bulwark educational system, as often shunned as
admired. Why does Montessori persist (and increasingly in the public sector) and why does
it elicit such sharply contrasting reactions? This article reviews several reasons why it is
admired, such as evidence of Montessori’s effectiveness, its alignment with educational
psychology research, and its broad scope. The points of research alignment are presented as
natural corollaries of Montessori’s central premise: independence, or self-determination. After
discussing these extrinsic and intrinsic reasons why Montessori is admired, the article con-
cludes with speculation as to why it is also shunned—namely its incommensurability with
conventional education culture and what might be a consequence: frequent poor implementa-
tion. The incommensurability of evidence-based alternatives with the conventional system is
also posed as a reason for radical school reform.

Keywords Education . Alternative schooling . Human development . Self-determination

My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding from [one
level of school to the next], but of individuals passing from one stage of independence to
a higher [one], by means of their own activity [and…] will, which constitutes the inner
evolution of the individual. (Montessori 1948a, p. xv)

* Angeline S. Lillard
[email protected]

1
Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, P.O. Box 400400, Charlottesville, VA
22904-4400, USA
940 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

Ted Dintersmith, recipient of the National Education Association’s 2018 BFriend of Education^
award, recently spent a year observing classrooms across the country, and while for the most
part he saw standard conventional teaching (e.g., a teacher tells students what they need to know
then tests them to see if they learned it), he also saw some excellent teaching in which children
learned with a sense of purpose and agency, acquiring essential skills and cultivating knowledge
that he believed was deep, useful, and retained. He said these learning principles Babound in
preschools, kindergartens, and Montessori schools—places where children love school, learn
deeply and joyously, and master essential skills […—but are lacking in] most schools^
(Dintersmith 2018, p. xvi). Montessori does not appear in Dintersmith’s text again, but his
examples of excellent innovative teaching reflect elements that are routine in Montessori
education (for example, hands-on activities, abundant free choice, no grades or tests; see
Marshall 2017). This exemplifies the Montessori quandary: recognized as excellent, yet often
left out of conversations on school reform (Chertoff 2012, December; Walsh and Petty 2007).
Although instigated contemporaneously with the factory system of schooling, initially with
children who were atypically developing and then with children of low-income parents,
Montessori education is today undergoing a surge, proliferating into public schools and
charters, high schools, and day cares the world over (Debs 2019; Whitescarver and
Cossentino 2008). Bookstores typically still stock Montessori’s writings, and scholarship about
Montessori is on the rise (for example, Google Scholar citations for the term have increased
eightfold over the last 25 years; see Fig. 1 for comparison with other education systems). The
system Montessori developed also remains virtually unchanged, in contrast to conventional
education which has undergone several adjustments since its origins in the one-room school-
house (age-graded classrooms, grades, chalkboards, bells, the 50-min hour, Carnegie units or
credits, multiple choice tests, and sometimes back again) in attempt to improve it (Tyack and
Cuban 1995). When so many other school reforms have come and gone, it seems remarkable
that this marginal Montessori system persists. In the first part of this article, I discuss three sets
of reasons for this. The first is extrinsic reasons: child outcomes, teacher satisfaction, and what
parents want. The second set of reasons is intrinsic to Montessori—its match to human
psychology, as is indicated by a wealth of research, and its tremendous breadth. I end with
speculation as to why, despite these attributes, Montessori is still marginalized in discussions
of education reform, and I argue that radical school reform, such as Montessori, is what is
needed to really improve schools.
Montessori is a system of education aimed at children from birth to 18. It is rooted in
observations made by an Italian physician between 1890 and 1952 in response to children’s
behaviors in evolving prepared environments. Montessori’s overarching goal was Bto supply
the needs of every stage from the beginning^ (Montessori 1961/2007, p. 53). BEducation should
no longer be mostly imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of
human potentialities^ (Montessori 1946/1963, p. 2). The system that resulted by the end of her
life (e.g., Montessori 2012) involves 3-year age groupings (0–3, 3–6, and so on) wherein a
specific, carefully developed apparatus appropriate for all the children in the age group is
supplied, with a teacher whose role is not to impart information, but instead to connect children
to the environment where self-guided learning occurs. The apparatus contains a network of
teaching materials interconnected across all curriculum areas (language, math, geometry,
science, geography, music, art, and even practical life skills) and age levels, with which children
can freely choose to work in constructive ways to further their development. The teacher’s
responsibility is to ensure constructive activities, in part by presenting individual children
lessons that meet their successive developmental needs. A central premise is that children are
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 941

16000

14000
Number of Citations in Google Scholar

12000

10000

Montessori
8000 Reggio Emilia
Steiner Waldorf
Froebel
6000

4000

2000

0
1992-1996 1997-2001 2002-2006 2007-2011 2012-2016

Fig. 1 Google scholar references to alternative school type name and the terms Bchild^ and Beducation^ from 1991 to
2016. Froebel kindergartens began in the late 1700s, Montessori in 1907, Waldorf (for elementary school ages) in
1919, and Reggio Emilia (for pre-K-kindergarten) around 1945. Using references as a measure of interest, Montessori
garners by far the most interest, although interest in each method has increased since the early 1990s

active learners with intrinsic motivation and innate knowledge of how to develop themselves
under two conditions: when adults do not interfere, and when they can deeply concentrate on
meaningful work in natural social environments. Further description can be found in
Montessori’s books (e.g., Montessori 1948b; Montessori 1967/1995). Although Montessori
was developed many decades ago, its orientation to basic human psychological needs might
render it still relevant for children today, much as the basic tenets of Buddhist psychology still
are true at 2500 years old (Walsh and Shapiro 2006).

Extrinsic Reasons for Montessori’s Persisting

Empirical Evidence on Montessori Outcomes

Although Montessori implementation ranges in quality, evidence suggests that properly

implemented Montessori education (Lillard and McHugh 2019a, b) is very effective (Lillard
2018). The highest standard for intervention research, pure random assignment, is not always
feasible for testing schoolwide models1; two recent studies used the next most stringent design:
lottery waitlisted controls. Lotteries rarely exist at private schools, but there are over 500 public
Montessori schools in the USA (National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector 2014) and
some admit by random lottery following parent application. Lillard and Else-Quest (2006)
sampled 5- and 12-year-olds who had gained admission by random lottery as 3 year olds to a

1
True random assignment was done for Head Start programs over 40 years ago, but the Montessori implemen-
tation was poor (see Marshall 2017).
942 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

high-quality (as evidenced by its being recognized by the Association Montessori

Internationale or AMI2) public Montessori school in Milwaukee, or were assigned to a waitlist.
Children in Montessori performed better or the same on every measure, never worse. To wit, at
age 5, they performed better than waitlisted controls on the Woodcock-Johnson Letter-Word,
Word Attack, and Applied Problems subtests, and on tests of executive function, social
problem-solving, and social cognition. On the playground, they were significantly more likely
to be involved in positive peer play and less likely to be involved in ambiguous rough play.
Twelve-year-old children in Montessori wrote more creative stories using more sophisticated
sentence structures. They also used more constructive strategies in solving social problems and
reported feeling a greater sense of community at school.
The second study was longitudinal and followed across preschool children who by random
lottery were admitted to one of two AMI-recognized public Montessori magnet schools in one
of America’s poorest cities (Hartford, CT) or were waitlisted (Lillard et al. 2017). Although
equal on all measures and demographics (income, parent education, age, race, gender) at the
outset, by the end of kindergarten, the Montessori children performed better in academic
achievement and social cognition. They also persisted more on a challenging task and
expressed greater liking of academic tasks relative to recreational tasks, and at the end of
PK4, they had significantly stronger executive function. Of particular interest, children in the
lower income half of the sample who were in Montessori significantly closed the achievement
gap with higher income children by the end of the study. The income–achievement correlation
in Montessori was half what it was in business-as-usual schools, and even less than half what it
was in the 16 other public magnet schools in the study. Effect sizes in both these lottery studies
were strong for school interventions (see Dweck 2019), ranging from a third to over three
quarters of a standard deviation.
Other studies have found positive outcomes of Montessori using matched samples (for
reviews, see Lillard 2017, chapter 11; Marshall 2017). With such designs, parent effects can
masquerade as school effects, if particular types of parents that are expected to have better
child outcomes (say, authoritative ones) also prefer Montessori schools. But matched samples
are sometimes the best designs available, and while the results should be viewed with some
caution, they should not be ignored, especially given the outcomes from lottery studies. One
study found that children who had gone to public AMI-recognized Montessori schools
through 5th grade performed better in math and science than their age-, gender-, and
economically matched high school classmates (Dohrmann et al. 2007). Two studies found
better social–emotional outcomes (including feelings of Bflow^ while doing schoolwork and
social support at school) among AMI Montessori middle schoolers than matched private
school controls (Rathunde and Csikszentmihalyi 2005a, b). A recent study of 3rd grade test
scores in South Carolina found significantly higher standardized test scores for over 7000
children in 45 public Montessori schools (with varying quality of implementation) versus
controls (Culclasure et al. 2018). Other recent studies also show that Montessori—especially

2
AMI is the organization founded by Maria Montessori to carry on her work. It has very intensive requirements
for the people who train teachers; after their own training and at least 5 years of teaching, the trainers undergo at
least 5 more years of apprenticeship to three different teacher-trainers. Exams for new teachers are overseen by a
central AMI committee, keeping standards high. AMI-recognized schools have AMI-trained teachers, a full set of
approved Montessori materials, classrooms with specific age divisions (3–6, 6–9, and so on), a 3-h work period
in the morning and 2–3 h in the afternoon, and just one trained teacher with 24–35 children per class. An AMI-
trained consultant visits at least once every 3 years. See https://amiusa.org.
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 943

when it is implemented with high fidelity, but sometimes even when it is not—has strong
outcomes in social emotional and academic realms (e.g., Ansari and Winsler 2014; Bhatia
et al. 2015; Brown and Steele 2015; Franc and Subotic 2015; İman et al. 2017; Kayılı 2018;
Kayılı and Arı 2016; Mix et al. 2017; Pate et al. 2014; Peng and Md-Yunus 2014; Stewart
et al. 2007). Montessori also fares better than other schools in terms of racial equality. Over
half of children in public Montessori schools in the USA today are students of color, and
such students have better academic outcomes and a reduced racial disproportionality of
disciplinary events in Montessori schools (Brown and Lewis 2017; Brown and Steele
2015; Debs 2016; Debs and Brown 2017).
Several studies that do not find better academic outcomes (e.g., Laski et al. 2016; Lopata
et al. 2005; Ruijs 2017) failed to address implementation quality, which might explain the
differences. In the only studies thus far to directly compare implementations, children in
Montessori classrooms that used only Montessori materials advanced more than children in
classrooms that used other materials as well (Lillard 2012; Lillard and Heise 2016). The later
study was experimental: Children in classrooms in which the non-Montessori materials were
removed advanced more in reading and executive function across a semester than children in a
classroom that retained its non-Montessori materials. In another experimental study supporting
the importance of Montessori materials, adding some Montessori exercises to conventional
preschool classrooms improved fine motor ability relative to classrooms in which the exercises
were not inserted (Rule and Stewart 2002). In sum, although there is significant variation in
how Montessori is implemented (Daoust 2004), at this point, better outcomes on the wide
range of outcomes studied appear to be reliable in well-implemented Montessori.
The generally positive results of outcome studies are an extrinsic reason for
Montessori’s persistence. Still more evidence is needed. The vast majority of Montessori
schools are private and require tuition. While most of the studies just cited used well-
matched control groups, not all did; even those that did could be masquerading parent
effects as school effects, with two exceptions: those using lotteries. Yet the lottery studies
compared Montessori to Bbusiness-as-usual,^ and of course schools in the USA are very
diverse (see Dintersmith 2018). Further research is needed comparing Montessori to
other specific models (as in Ansari and Winsler (2014) which compared specifically to
HighScope). In addition, it is unclear whether the results of lottery studies would apply
to children whose parents do not enter them in lotteries for special school programs.
Further, most research has concerned children ages 3 to 6; only a handful of studies
examine outcomes of older children in Montessori, and research on children younger
than 3 in Montessori infant and toddler programs is practically nonexistent. There is also
little research on the impact of variation in Montessori implementation, which definitely
exists (Daoust 2004), particularly when one goes outside of the stricter AMI-recognized
implementation (by definition since AMI schools have particular implementation stan-
dards). Marshall (2017) notes other problems, like the dearth of longitudinal studies (but
see Lillard 2012; Lillard et al. 2017; Phillips-Silver & Daza 2018; Stewart et al. 2007)
and studies examining dosage and critical period effects. A different concern regarding
Montessori research is that teachers have not been randomly assigned to take Montessori
training, nor have they been studied for pre-existing differences; although the experi-
mental implementation study above suggests otherwise, better outcomes in Montessori
students, when seen, might result from teacher differences that would have led to better
outcomes regardless of what educational system those teachers implemented. Pertinent to
this is teacher satisfaction—another possible extrinsic reason for Montessori’s longevity.
944 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

Teacher Satisfaction

Montessori would not exist if there were no teachers willing to use it, and Montessori teachers
express being very Bat home^ with the approach (Malm 2004). In a recent study of public
South Carolina teachers, those teaching Montessori expressed greater job satisfaction: 98%
reported either loving or liking their job versus 89% of South Carolina public teachers
altogether (Culclasure et al. 2018); this 89% is similar to the 90% satisfaction level of public
school teachers across the USA in 2011–2012 (U.S. Department of Education 2016). South
Carolina public Montessori teachers overwhelmingly liked their job despite indicating they
were asked to compromise the Montessori program and often lacked the full set of Montessori
materials, suggesting a lack of administrative support; in the national survey just cited, teacher
satisfaction among unsupported public school teachers was 65%. Teacher job satisfaction is
especially dependent on working with students and witnessing their development, as well as
being in a positive school climate (Cockburn and Haydn 2003). Why Montessori teachers
experience greater job satisfaction is an empirical question (addressed to a degree by Malm
2004). Research (cited above) indicates that Montessori schools have a more positive social
climate, and teachers work with each child for 3 years, and both factors are associated with
higher teacher job satisfaction. In addition, in-depth Montessori teacher training intentionally
prepares teachers psychologically for their task, cultivating attitudes to children and aligned
values (Whitescarver and Cossentino 2007). One of the attitudes is allowing children the space
to develop themselves, to be independent. Montessori teachers report giving children signif-
icantly more independence than conventional teachers (Caldwell et al. 1981), and teachers
might be more satisfied in school environments that are higher in student self-determination.
The teacher training could thus lead to better and more satisfying teaching. On the other hand,
the higher job satisfaction might be due to selection bias. Although the implementation studies
cited above suggest other factors are at play, it is possible that people who were already
predisposed to enjoy teaching more (regardless of type of teaching) might self-select to teach
in the Montessori way.

Parent Endorsement

A third possible reason for Montessori’s longevity is parents. Some parents are at liberty to
choose a neighborhood they know has good schools, but others have no choice; in
contrast, if a child is at a Montessori school, it was intentionally chosen by parents; unlike
conventional programs, alternative programs are rarely if ever the only option. The surge
in public Montessori today is surely led by parent demand. Recent studies of why parents
today choose Montessori reveal that middle class parents are attracted to Montessori
principles like self-determination and Montessori’s respect for children (Debs 2019;
Hiles 2018). Many parents also are also attracted to the classroom environment and
materials, and believe Montessori will help their child to have better outcomes, including
academic success, while also sustaining intrinsic motivation and joy in learning. On the
other hand, parents can also be a reason for why there is not more Montessori. In Debs’
(2019) qualitative study of public Montessori, parents, especially low-income parents,
expressed concerns (contrary to the evidence described earlier) that Montessori itself is not
academically rigorous.
In sum, the outcomes of Montessori, the high degree of Montessori teacher satisfaction, and
parent endorsement are three extrinsic possible reasons for this educational system’s longevity.
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 945

However, more high-quality research is needed on the system’s outcomes, including the degree
to which better outcomes result from the system itself or from the teachers who chose to
implement it—and who implement it in particular (high-fidelity) ways.

Intrinsic Reasons for Montessori Persisting

Besides these extrinsic reasons, I consider two intrinsic reasons why this century-old system is
still relatively prevalent and unchanged: alignment with findings from developmental and
educational psychology, and breadth.

Montessori’s Convergence with Developmental Science: Self-Determination and Its

Corollaries

Montessori was based in observations of children, which might explain why it dovetails very
well with the accumulated evidence from developmental and educational psychology (Lillard
2017; Marshall 2017). Highlighting her intent to develop a system suited to human psychol-
ogy, Montessori called her education system BPsycho-Pedagogy^ (Montessori 1955/1989, p.
16), and the Italian title of her first book, The Montessori Method, was, literally translated, A
Scientific Method of Pedagogy as Applied to Child Education in the Children’s Houses
(Montessori 2012, p. 7). The generality and perpetuity of Montessori’s observations might
stem from the variety of children and cultures in which she observed. Initially, Montessori
observed atypically developing children, then children with extreme economic disadvantage,
and eventually children on four continents from all social classes (Montessori 1962/1967). This
variety of children could help render ideas that could apply to all children, even a century later.
The central premise Montessori arrived at is that school should be BHelp given in order that the
human personality may achieve its independence^ (Montessori 1955/1989, p. 6). After presenting
evidential support for this central premise, evidence is presented on several features that can be
viewed as natural corollaries to it. Many of these features are discussed at length in Lillard (2017).

Self-Determination Independence means self-determination. Abundant theory and empirical

evidence suggest the benefits of self-determination to the human psyche (Ryan and Deci
2000). Ryan and Deci claim that humans have three basic innate psychological needs:
competence, autonomy, and relatedness. By setting children free in a natural social environ-
ment (meaning a place where they can freely interact with their peers) and providing
conditions that cultivate sufficient social skills, relatedness is naturally achieved in Montessori
settings (see BPeers^ section below). By giving children opportunities to do many activities
which children choose, and at the right level (difficult but not too challenging), a sense of
competence arises (Cyvas 2010). And self-determination is of course at the very root of
autonomy. Thus, the Montessori system is set up to satisfy basic human needs according to
the self-determination theory.
Self-determination has several natural prerequisites and consequences, shown in Fig. 2 and
detailed in the subsequent sections. To preview, self-determination requires that children
choose their own activities. For free choice in school to lead to constructive learning, the
activities must be interesting. Embodied and interconnected activities/knowledge engender
more interest than purely abstract and disconnected ones. When deeply interested, we focus
our attention, developing executive function. Extrinsic rewards undermine the sense of self-
946 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

determination, so rewards must be intrinsic. A tightly ordered and organized environment and
curriculum also facilitate self-determined learning. Self-determination allows for and, in fact,
requires positive and caring teacher–child relationships, if teachers are going to have any
influence. Finally, when children can determine their social groupings, they gravitate to
arrangements that are satisfying for their age levels, and natural peer tutoring and collaboration
can result. The evidence for each of these points is discussed below.

Free Choice Montessori practice aligns with research in educational psychology by giving
children considerable choice, which clearly confers a sense of self-determination. BThe
essential condition [for psychological health] is freedom to act in a prepared environment
where the child can be intelligently active^ (Montessori 1948a, p. 24). A great deal of evidence
supports the benefits of free choice to well-being, learning, and development.
In one study, a group of children were asked to choose a category of anagrams to solve
(Iyengar and Lepper 1999), whereas others were told their (yoked) category had been chosen
for them. Students in the first group solved the most anagrams and were most likely to choose
to take more anagrams home to solve on their own. In a second experiment, they found that
even choosing the elements and names of objects in a computer game improved performance
and task interest. In another study, babies who could move their own mobile by kicking their
foot showed more positive affect, and later transferred their mobile-control knowledge to a
new mobile; babies who could not control the initial mobile did not figure out that they could
have controlled the subsequent one (Watson 1971). These and many other studies (for a
review, see Lillard 2017, chapter 3) show that more self-determination, and the intrinsic sense
or locus of control that goes with it, leads to more learning and higher well-being, across ages
and settings, including school classrooms (Ames 1992; De Charms 1976). Findings are
particularly strong when activities are interesting (Patall 2013), a Montessori feature discussed
more below.
In Montessori classrooms, Bchildren have free choice all day long. Life is based on choice,
so they learn to make their own decisions. They must decide and choose for themselves all the
time … They cannot learn through obedience to the commands of another^ (Montessori 1989,
p. 26). Montessori gained this insight from a simple incident in the first classroom in Rome
(Montessori 1962/1967). The teacher had arrived late, to find that the children had asked the
janitor to let them into school. At the time, the Montessori materials were kept locked in a
cabinet until distributed to children by the teacher. Yet on that day, the children had taken the
materials out themselves and were using them when the teacher arrived. Montessori was

Work with peers in

3 year age groups
Self-Determination Order and organization

Interesting Work Intrinsic Rewards Teacher warmth

Montessori apparatus and direction

Interconnected Work

Strong Attention
Embodied Cognition

Fig. 2 Some evidence-based elements of the Montessori system

Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 947

fascinated, and from that day, the materials were placed on low shelves and children chose
their own activities.
Montessori noted that, BChildren must develop themselves by their own exercises^
(Montessori 2013, p. 22). She believed that intrinsic impulses cue the development sequence,
and therefore, children’s development is self-driven (rather than adult-driven). She inferred that
children have an internal drive to independence from watching babies learn to nurse, reach and
grasp objects, sit, crawl, walk, and finally talk, essentially on their own, with no formal lessons
from adults in these skills (Montessori 1967/1995). Until the late 1800s, this is how learning
almost always occurred; only a tiny minority of the world’s children had formal schooling
(Rogoff et al. 2001). Natural or informal learning Bis nondidactic; is embedded in meaningful
activity; builds on the learner’s initiative, interest, or choice (rather than resulting from external
demands or requirements); and does not involve assessment external to the activity^ (Rogoff
et al. 2016, p. 358). In informal learning situations (versus in conventional school settings),
children pay very close attention to the source of information; for example, a Mayan child
learning to weave carefully studies the adult weaver (Rogoff 2004). In so doing, children act
independently, taking control of their own learning by directing their attention. Montessori
education is consistent with informal learning, and children learn in part by watching
their peers (discussed later) and teacher demonstrations.
Montessori’s beliefs that (1) children have internal drives toward self-development, and (2)
when unimpeded, development is healthy and normal, together imply that children are
naturally driven to surmount challenges and to learn (see also Simon 2001; Vygotsky 1978),
and will do so if given the right stimuli (for example, child-directed human speech) or tools
(for example, objects to handle or climb on) and freedom to choose what stimuli to interact
with, when, and how much. This is consistent with much educational theory (for further
discussion, see Rathunde 2009) and evidence (BThe Goldilocks Effect,^ Kidd et al. 2012,
2014): Young children choose to attend to what is just above their current level—essentially in
their Bzone of proximal development^ (Vygotsky 1978)—tailoring the input to facilitate their
own development. Setting children free in an environment prepared to serve their develop-
mental needs allows children to select stimuli from the environment to fill their proximate
needs.
An analogy is found in the nutrition literature. In a classic study, 15 children were given a
choice of 30 healthy foods each day from weaning until age 6, and their self-selected diets
were nutritionally sound over long time scales (Davis 1928, 1939). More recent studies
support this principle: At liberty among healthy choices, organisms select diets that meet their
nutritional needs (Frankel et al. 2012; Johnson et al. 1991; Rovee-Collier et al. 1996).
Montessori aims to provide an array of healthy choices for intellectual and socioemotional
growth from which children can select what is needed for their current moment in
development. In Montessori theory, two impediments to healthy self-development are
(1) adults’ interfering with children’s choices, typically by providing extrinsic rewards
or punishments, discussed later, or (2) adults failing to provide appropriate stimulators,
leaving children bored.

Interesting Curricular Materials and Activities Given free choice, children would only work
with the materials and follow up on lessons on their own if doing so was interesting. Interest
can be situational, as when most anyone would agree something is interesting, or individual,
where a child has a particular intense interest (Renninger and Bachrach 2015). Regardless of
which source interest has, research in educational psychology has made clear that learning
948 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

improves when interest is aroused (Harackiewicz et al. 2016; Renninger and Hidi 2011). For
example, children score more highly on reading comprehension items for topics they had
previously noted were more interesting (Estes and Vaughan 1973; Renninger 1992). Adoles-
cents’ advances on skills at which they had been identified as especially talented are predicted
by how deeply interested the adolescents were at younger ages when engaging those skills,
measured by experience sampling (Rathunde and Csikszentmihalyi 1993). And interest in
reading is a strong predictor of later literacy (Whitehurst and Lonigan 1998).
Children in Montessori classrooms can choose activities and work on reports on topics that
are personally interesting to them, giving a strong sense of self-determination. A child who
loves frogs can make frogs the subject of art, math, biology, geography, and language
endeavors. But self-determination is also helped by engendering situational interest. BThe
secret of success is found to lie in the right use of imagination in awakening interest, and the
stimulation of seeds of interest already sown^ (Montessori 1948a). Montessori materials and
lessons were designed by trial and error to captivate children’s attention, and teachers are also
trained to engender situational interest. BWhatever is presented to [a child] must be made
beautiful and clear, striking the imagination^ (Montessori 1948a, p. 17). Two supports to
interest in Montessori are the work being embodied and interconnected.

Embodied Cognition Montessori work is arguably interesting in part because it is embodied

(Rathunde 2009); doing things tends to be more interesting than sitting still. Embodied or
Bgrounded^ (Barsalou 2008, 2010) cognition refers to the idea that thought is not composed
purely of abstract, amodal symbols, but rather, is supported by the body (Wilson 2002), and in
some cases even offloaded to the body and the external world (Byrge et al. 2014; Clark 2013;
Pouw et al. 2014a, b). It includes the idea that metaphors reflect how our bodies are
constructed and function (Lakoff and Johnson 1999) and systems perspectives in which
organisms develop in dynamic interplay with their environment (Smith and Thelen 2003).
Abundant evidence supports that learning and development are helped when they are
embodied (but see Pouw et al. 2014a, b). As evidence, consider that infants who manually
explore objects have more advanced visual perception regarding objects (Needham 2000).
Handling objects also predicts understanding others’ reaching behavior to be goal-directed,
and infants who are given early experience handling objects (by giving pregrasping infants
Bsticky^ Velcro mittens that attach to cloth toys) appreciate others’ goals earlier (Sommerville
et al. 2005). With older children, movement has been shown to enhance memory, literacy, and
physics understanding. For example, motioning one’s hands as if to pour enables better
prediction of the angle at which water would pour (Schwartz and Black 1999) and walking
in various positions on a carousel allows children to understand that all parts of an object move
at the same speed better than does watching the carousel (Levin et al. 1990). Children who
trace letters while making the associated sounds learn sound–letter relations better than
children who look at letters while making sounds (Bara et al. 2007), and the act of writing
enhances reading skills (James 2017). Many more studies support embodied cognition,
explaining its current prominence in discussions of schooling (de Silva Joyce and Feez 2018).
Piaget, who took Montessori’s training course and was president of the Swiss Montessori
Society (Baumann 1999), noted Montessori’s prescient recognition that cognition is embodied:
BGeneralizing her discoveries with unparalleled mastery, Mme Montessori . . . immediately
applied to normal children what she had learned from backward ones: during its earliest stages
the child learns more by action than through thought [, leading her to develop] a general
method whose repercussions throughout the entire world have been incalculable^ (Piaget
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 949

1970, pp. 147–148). Montessori’s books are replete with quotations expressing the connection
she saw between movement and cognition, for example: BWatching a child makes it obvious
that the development of his mind comes about through his movements… Mind and movement
are parts of the same entity^ (Montessori 1967/1995, p. 142). Montessori is deeply concerned
with educating children’s movements, and it uses movement to teach (Rathunde 2009).
Feez (2018) provided an example from geometry. The youngest children in a Montessori
primary (3 to 6) classroom are taught to fold cloths they will use as napkins or for cleaning.
Lines are sewn in the cloths to show children where to fold them, resulting in squares,
rectangles, and triangles. Children learn the names of these shapes, and later come to apply
them to other material, including a language material called the metal insets, a set of 10
geometric shapes which children trace and eventually use to make Spirograph-like artistic
designs (see Montessori 1934/2011). When children trace the metal insets, they learn names
like pentagon and ellipsoid, which they will apply in later geometry work and elsewhere. By
tracing the metal insets with pencils, children also receive indirect preparation for writing.
They also trace many more additional shapes in a geometry cabinet; here they trace the shapes
with their fingers while saying the name, continuing preparation for writing. A puzzle-like
game in which the wooden pieces are placed on cards showing the shapes’ outlines ensues,
and is a step in a movement toward abstraction, as the cards become symbols, as do the words,
and children eventually leave behind the tracing and can simply use the word to denote the
concept. Some of the geometric shapes resurface as children learn parts of speech, with a black
equilateral triangle representing the noun family and a red circle representing the verb.
Children place these symbols (and others representing other parts of speech) next to words
as they diagram sentences. BBy combining objects and movement with language in multi-
modal ensembles of learning resources, Montessori designed sign complexes in which sensory
and intellectual meanings are unified. These ensembles isolate and give prominence to the
critical variables and contrasts from which educational knowledge emerges^ (Feez 2018, p.
45).
Also related to embodiment, Montessori is well known for its encouragement of fine motor
skills; even in conventional kindergartens, Montessori exercises significantly strengthened
such skills over 6 months (Rule and Stewart 2002). Control of one's hands is related to
intelligence more generally (Deary et al. 2004; Melnick et al. 2013), and children’s fine motor
skills strongly predict later school success (Cameron et al. 2012; Grissmer et al. 2010).

Interconnection People also tend to be more interested in material that connects with other
material they already know in part, but not thoroughly (Berlyne 1960; Hidi and Renninger
2006; Tobias 1994). Hence, an excellent study strategy is Bbridging^: thinking about how new
material connects to other materials one already knows (Miyatsu et al. 2018). BAdvance
organizers^ like outlines also serve this function by giving people concepts on which to
anchor new information (Mayer 2008). The Montessori system capitalizes on bridging. BIt is
well-known that … [one must link] all new knowledge to the old, ‘going from the known to
the unknown,’ because what is absolutely new can awake no interest^ (Montessori 1917/1965,
p. 45). Throughout the Montessori curriculum, from birth to high school, there is a great deal
of interconnection; the napkin-folding-to-grammar symbol sequence just described is one of
many. At the elementary (6 to 12) level, interconnection is explicit in the title: Cosmic
Education: Children are presented with the universe as an interconnected entity. BAll animals
and vegetables [even] insects have a cosmic task. All are agents, maintainers and conservers of
this order in the environment^ (Montessori 2012, p. 89).
950 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

Self-determination requires that activities be interesting, and embodiment and interconnection are
two ways to make them be. A consequence of engaging in activities in which one is very interested
is that attention becomes fixed and deeply concentrated. This is another way that Montessori is
aligned with educational psychology research, which could account for its persistence.

Concentrated Attention When one is deeply interested in one’s task, one concentrates
deeply, engaging full attention (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). The ability to control attention is a
highly laudable goal for education (James 1890, p. 424). Attention is a pillar of the executive
system (Petersen and Posner 2012), which has been tied to school and life success (Blair and
Raver 2015). For example, self-regulation at ages 3 to 6 predicted age 32 health, wealth, and
criminality outcomes in a sample of over 1000 people born in 1972–1973 in Dunedin, New
Zealand (Moffitt et al. 2011).
Deep-focused attention is central to Montessori education. BThe task of education is to fix
the wandering mind of the child^ (Montessori 1994, p. 105). Once children began to
concentrate on self-determined work, Montessori said, BThe child’s whole personality
changed, and the first sign of this was an assertion of independence. It was as though [the
child] were saying: ‘I want to do everything myself’^ (Montessori 1967/1995, p. 130). Thus,
concentration appeared to enable self-determination. In addition, several other positive char-
acteristics were said to emerge once children began to concentrate on work: they became
joyful, empathetic, kind, and respectful of others, began to make good choices, became more
compliant, perseverant and so on (e.g., Montessori 1962/1967, 1966, 1967/1995). Research
does indicate that Montessori particularly develops executive function (Diamond and Lee
2011; Kayılı 2018; Lillard 2012; Lillard and Else-Quest 2006; Lillard et al. 2017). The
characteristics Montessori noted also resemble the Bautotelic^ personality associated with
regularly achieving Bflow^ states through deep concentration on work (Csikszentmihalyi
1997) and characteristics of a self-regulated learner (Blair and Raver 2015). Such effects of
concentration have even been observed in monkeys: Nonhuman primates raised in captivity,
natural models for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), improve in their behavior
following training on how to use a joystick, a task requiring their sustained attention
(Rumbaugh and Washburn 1996).
In sum, self-determination requires interesting activities, which lead to deep attention,
promoting executive function—another way in which Montessori education is aligned with
research findings. And executive function in turn supports healthy choices in a context of self-
determination. Self-determination also requires that one avoids extrinsic rewards, like gold
stars, grades, and Breading for pizza^ programs, because research shows that such rewards
negate a sense of self-determination (Deci et al. 2001).

All Rewards Are Intrinsic Besides requiring interesting activities, environments marked by
self-determination lack extrinsic rewards, praise, and overt evaluation that can be taken as
means of extrinsic control—an Boverjustification effect^ (Lepper and Henderlong 2000).
Consistent with its goal of self-determination, Montessori also lacks these elements. There
are no grades, and teachers are counseled not to praise or openly evaluate children (except if a
child clearly seeks praise, see Montessori 1967/1995). The materials are self-correcting, and
children learn to find their own errors using control materials. Montessori believed that
children naturally want to fix their errors, in keeping with a natural tendency to virtuosity
(Kubovy 1999), but that BAll the crosses made by the teacher on the child’s written work. ..
only have a lowering effect on his energies and interests^ (Montessori 1967/1995, p. 245).
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 951

There is considerable controversy about the long-held practice of extrinsic rewards in school,
which Thorndike over 100 years ago urged on teachers– to reward correct associations with candy
and pats on the head and to punish incorrect ones with Bstern looks^ (Jonich 1962), and extrinsic
reewards are embedded in the conventional model. Although there are likely many reasons why
children’s intrinsic motivation to learn in conventional school declines every year they are in
school, research suggests extrinsic rewards might be one. And intrinsic motivation is positively
related to school performance, whereas extrinsic motivation is negatively related (Corpus and
Wormington 2014; Lepper et al. 2005). An ample body of research has shown that if people are
already motivated to engage in an activity (as perhaps young children are in school learning), using
extrinsic rewards depletes motivation once the rewards are removed (Deci et al. 1999). Extrinsic
rewards are detrimental in part because they create a sense that other people are responsible for
one’s outcomes—in other words, they undermine the sense of self-determination (Deci and Ryan
2011). Montessori’s lack of grades and other extrinsic rewards is another way in which it is aligned
with educational psychology research (see Lillard 2017, chapter 6).

Natural Peer Engagement Self-determination applies not only to activities, but also to social
milieu: Children are free to choose their social arrangements in Montessori classrooms. This has
led some to claim Montessori is asocial, because rather than all acting together as a single group,
as they do when teachers lead whole-class activities, children (especially before age 6) often
engage in different individual activities, although they might be working side by side (even on the
same type of activity) and conversing. Another way children in Montessori classrooms common-
ly interact is peer tutoring, with older children helping younger ones (Montessori 1967/1995). At
the elementary level (ages 6–12), children in Montessori classrooms almost constantly engage
with others, collaborating on reports, deciding on the nature of their report, how to conduct the
research, who will do what parts, how it will be presented to the class, and so on. Educational
psychology research on peer and collaborative learning supports this natural Montessori sequenc-
ing of more individual work at younger ages transitioning to more group work with age (Hartup
1983). Research also supports the efficacy of peer tutoring and collaborative learning.
For example, low-SES children who were assigned to engage in a peer tutoring program
significantly outperformed those who did not, not only in the topic tutored but in all other topics
and even 2 years after the tutoring program had stopped; they also performed as well as a higher
SES group (Greenwood et al. 1989). Collaborative learning programs like Brown’s
BCommunities of Learners^ and Jigsaw Classrooms are also very successful (Aronson and
Patnoe 1997; Brown and Palincsar 1989; Rogoff et al. 2001). Yet children’s skill and proclivity
toward peer interaction increases with age (Hartup 1983), such that the benefits of collaborative
learning manifest after age 6 (Azmitia 1996) except in special in laboratory situations where
they have manifested at 5 but not earlier (Plötner et al. 2015). Typically, BEven 5-year-olds,
competent problem solvers in many instances, have difficulty working together to solve any but
the simplest and most familiar problems^ (Siegler 1998, p. 277). In addition, as children get
older, their desire to be with peers increases (Hartup 1983), and working with peers enhances
interest (Renninger and Hidi 2011; Thoman et al. 2012). Self-determination in Montessori
classrooms appears to allow children to gravitate toward the social arrangements that corre-
spond to their developmental capabilities and proclivities (see Lillard 2017, chapter 7).

Warm and Supportive Teacher–Child Relationships For teachers to influence development

when children are free to make their own choices, positive teacher–child relations are
especially important (Davis 2003; Pianta 1997). Montessori presaged current research by
952 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

focusing on the importance of teacher–child relationships (Whitescarver and Cossentino

2007). She counseled teachers on exactly how to behave with children, in ways consistent
with secure-attachment parenting (sensitively responsive) and authoritative parenting (adults
provide guidance, but give children considerable autonomy within those strict boundaries; see
Lillard 2017, chapter 9). For example, she said, BYoung people must have enough freedom to
allow them to act on individual initiative. But in order that individual action should be free and
useful at the same time it must be restricted within certain limits and rules that give the
necessary guidance^ (Montessori 1948b, p. 113), and BA teacher [must be] ready to be there
whenever she is called in order to attest to her love and confidence^ (Montessori 1956, p. 76).
Life outcomes are better when children are securely attached to warm and sensitive caregivers
(Drake et al. 2014; Stams et al. 2002) who become authoritative as children grow up
(Baumrind 1989). The importance of warm, sensitive, responsive teachers who can build
positive relationships is clear; teacher–child relationship quality predicts child outcomes
(Pakarinen et al. 2017; Pianta et al. 2002). Montessori was at the vanguard in seeing the
importance of such relationships for human learning. Presaging Baumrind’s (1989) description
of the authoritative parent, she wrote, BIt is true that the child develops in his environment
through activity itself, but he needs material means, guidance and an indispensable under-
standing. It is the adult who provides these necessities… If [the adult] does less than is
necessary, the child cannot act meaningfully, and if he does more than is necessary, he imposes
himself upon the child, extinguishing [the child’s] creative impulses^ (Montessori 1956, p.
154). To the extent that Montessori’s recommendation for how teachers relate to children holds
true, this is another way in which Montessori adheres to research in developmental science.

Orderly, Organized Environments Another aid to the success of a self-determined learning

environment is organization. Abundant research has shown that children thrive when condi-
tions are orderly and predictable. In one such study, kindergartners received over 2 weeks six
lessons in a nearby classroom; for three lessons, its walls were filled with decorations and
information, as one often sees in classrooms (Bullard 2013); for the three other lessons, the
walls were sparse, containing just a little information relevant to the lesson. Children’s
attention was coded during each science lesson, and their learning was tested after. The results
suggested that children were distracted by the cluttered walls: They spent more time looking at
them than the teacher, and they also learned significantly less. This experimental study is
consistent with a naturalistic study in the UK of over 3500 children, ages 3 to 11, in 153
classrooms in 27 different schools (Barrett et al. 2015). Across the school year, children
learned the most in classrooms in which walls provided an intermediate level of stimulation,
Bin balance with a degree of order, ideally without clutter^ (p. 129). Other studies have
examined household chaos and clutter: children who grow up in homes with more structure
and order (temporal and spatial) fare better at all ages, even controlling for demographic third
variables like SES (Evans 2006). Other studies have focused on routines, from bedtime to
chores to holidays, and again, have found that children thrive on order (see Lillard 2017,
chapter 10).
As described in Montessori’s books, an authentic Montessori classroom is a modicum of
order both at the macro level and micro levels, and in physical and temporal ways. For
example, the classroom is prepared in an orderly fashion, with like materials together, so there
is a math area, a language area, and so on. In addition, within and across sets of materials,
factors like color are held constant. All the items on the Btable washing^ activity tray will be
the same shade of blue, for example; and across all the decimal math materials, units are green,
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 953

tens are blue, and hundreds are red; this sequence repeats for the thousands. There are set
sequences with which to use all the materials, and set ways to remove them from the shelves to
which they are returned by the child after use, all in order. In addition, the object of many of
the materials—the game so to speak—is to put things in order. One messes up then arranges
the color tablets, for example, from lightest to darkest, or places all the like pairs together. The
classrooms have auditory order as well, as children are taught to use calm voices like their
teacher uses. BPedagogically the work of the school is to organize the work of the child …The
organizing of the child’s work and offering this work to the child is a very exact work for us…
It is the organization of the work which [leads to]… the establishment of mental order^
(Montessori 1997, pp. 31–33).
Montessori’s organized approach to sensorial education provides another example that is
pertinent to developmental neuroscience. In the late 1800s, Wundt’s laboratory in Leipzig was
interested in the limits of human perception, while Montessori was interested in how to aid
human perception. As noted earlier, the ability to make fine sensory discriminations is
correlated with intelligence (Deary et al. 2004; Melnick et al. 2013). Brains are hierarchically
organized, with lower levels feeding into higher ones (Merzenich 2001; Stiles et al. 2015).
Montessori’s theory was that by presenting children orderly, graded arrangements of sensorial
impressions—light to dark shades, lower to higher notes, rough to smooth boards, and so on—
the haphazard impressions of real world stimuli would have an organized neural system in
which to be registered. Given that we know the sensory cortex is organized in this (tonotopic,
etc.) fashion (Hari et al. 1993; Merzenich 2001; Romani et al. 1982), and that neuroplasticity is
specific to the input (Lillard and Erisir 2011), Montessori’s ideas make sense. Furthermore,
given the hierarchical nature of neural organization, it is possible that organization at the lower
sensory levels feed into organization at the higher levels (Lillard 2017).
Order might explain the discrepancy between poor outcomes from pure Bdiscovery
learning^ approaches (Klahr and Nigam 2004; Mayer 2004) and better outcomes from Bguided
play^ approaches (Alfieri et al. 2010; Verdine et al. 2017). In Montessori classrooms, children
are not simply let loose with stuff to do as they please. They are given orderly lessons with
how to use each material; everything is tightly organized with prescribed procedures of use.
Sometimes lessons are given by peers rather than the teacher, and peer tutoring is most
effective when procedures are tightly structured (Fantuzzo et al. 1992; Ginsburg-Block et al.
2006). Thus, the order of the Montessori environment also supports its guiding principle of
self-determination.

Summary: Self-Determination, Its Corollaries, and Montessori’s Alignment with Educa-

tional Psychology Research In sum, Montessori is well-aligned with educational psychology
research. Its central premise of self-determination can be seen as the core from which several
other alignments follow. Self-determination necessitates free choice, which is helped by not
having extrinsic rewards that can be perceived as manipulative. If children are to have free
choice in school and still learn, it requires that the learning activities be very interesting, so
children will want to do them. Interestingness in Montessori work is helped by its being
embodied and interconnected. The degree of interest also inspires deep attention, which
develops executive function, that then assists self-determination. Self-determination also
requires positive warm teacher relations, in order for teachers to have influence at times when
children need their subtle guidance (subtle to retain the sense of self-determination). Free
choice also allows children to adopt social arrangements corresponding to their levels of social
development. Finally, constructive development in a self-determined environment is likely
954 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

helped by the environment being tightly organized. Montessori arrived at these principles
through close observation of children, and education and psychology research today support
the conclusions to which she came. This alignment with research could be one reason
Montessori is so admired, and hence, continues to exist so long after its development.

Montessori’s Broad Scope

Besides its good outcomes and its alignment with psychological research, another appeal of
Montessori its broad scope, three facets of which are discussed here.

Age The basic tenet of Montessori—to set children free in a prepared environment, in which
they will self-educate—applies at all ages. Children become increasingly independent of adults
across the schooling years, but the basic Montessori method remains the same across them.
Montessori noted that, BOther methods have not so wide a function^ (Montessori 1955/1989,
p. 5) in the ages served: Froebel’s kindergarten and Reggio Emilia were designed for children
under age 7; Pestalozzi and Steiner developed schools for children ages 7–12; the Dalton Plan
was developed for high school; and so on. Montessori serves a broad age range, from birth to
18, which could be part of its appeal and longevity.

Global Reach Montessori education was intended not for children in a single particular culture
but for a biological human being. Children everywhere adapt to their cultures; Montessori is
designed to give children Ba knowledge of the environment to which [they] need to adapt
[themselves]^ (Montessori 1955/1989, p. 11). Montessori schools are in at least 110
(Whitescarver and Cossentino 2008) of the world’s 195 countries, from China to Argentina,
Australia to Finland, Kenya to Malaysia, and even (as I have seen) in the tiny Himalayan
Buddhist Kingdom of Bhutan. The differences in Montessori across countries lie in culturally
specific symbol systems (sandpaper Chinese characters, for example), practical life exercises
(making sand mandalas versus polishing shoes), whether materials are purchased or handmade
(as they are in less affluent countries), and basic elements like classroom density (higher in
densely populated cities like Mumbai). In other respects, Montessori classrooms enact the
same basic curriculum with the same materials around the globe.

Intraindividual Development In addition to being broad in ages served and cultures in which
it has integrated, Montessori education covers a broad range of areas of development
(Montessori 2012). The Montessori system began with children ages 3 to 6. Children begin
learning in this classroom in two areas: practical life and sensorial. The former educates
children on how to take care of themselves and their worlds: how to get along with others (with
Blessons of grace and courtesy^), and prepare meals, set the table, and clean dishes, arrange
flowers, mop the floor, and so on. In these latter activities, the hand works in service of the
mind, and many children have their first moments of deep concentration in the classroom
while doing such work; others experience those moments in sensorial work (Montessori 2012).
As noted earlier, sensorial activities systematically educate the senses by having children pair
like objects (for example, musical bells of the same pitch) and arrange objects in order (lowest
to highest pitch). The array of sensorial discriminations made includes colors, textures,
temperatures, weights, sizes, shapes, smells, tastes, and so on. Stemming from the sensorial
training, Montessori presents materials that lead children to discover how to write and then
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 955

read, as well as how to do mathematics and geometry. Children are also introduced to the
continents and countries of the world (including their geology and biology) and given
vocabulary to describe the universe and its contents. In sum, the curriculum in a Montessori
primary classroom is intentionally broad, carefully constructed to assist the child’s whole
development, from social skills to mathematics.
A similar approach was taken in bringing the method down to infancy (Montessori 1967/
1995). For example, infants are initially given mobiles with specific patterns to help to develop
the visual cortex (black–white contrasts in the earliest mobiles, gradations of color in later
ones). Later they are given interesting objects to interact with, often just outside of their reach,
to inspire them to move toward the objects, purportedly to develop a sense of agency. Children
are given limited choices initially, which increase as they become able to handle choices.
In elementary, for ages 6 to 12, the Montessori curriculum enlarges to embrace the entire
cosmos (Montessori 1948b). Montessori found that this scope engages children from age 6 on;
less scope, she said, kills interest. BIf neglected during this period, or frustrated in its vital
needs, the mind of the child becomes artificially dulled, henceforth resistant to imparted
knowledge^ (Montessori 1948a, p. 3). In middle and high school, children in Montessori
become increasingly independent, increasingly moving into and interacting with the real
world, while continuing to make interconnections and learn in collaboration with peers.
Montessori’s idea was that from 12 to 15, children engage in practical work using what they
have already learned; they might live on a farm, take care of animals, build farm structures, and
run several businesses associated with farm products, run a hotel, and so on. From 15 to 18,
school becomes like university.
In sum, Montessori education is unique in its broad scope with regard to the ranges of ages
and cultures served, topic areas covered, and aspects of development it aims to foster.

Summary

Montessori education exists basically unchanged over 100 years after its founding. I have
reviewed three extrinsic (outcomes, teacher satisfaction, and alignment with parent goals) and
two intrinsic aspects of Montessori education (alignment with developmental science and
breadth) that might explain why. And yet Montessori also remains on the margins
(Whitescarver and Cossentino 2008) and is often ignored in discussions of school reform
(Dintersmith 2018). In the next section, I explore possible reasons why this is so.

Challenges: Montessori’s Incommensurability with Common School

Culture

Montessori education has remained on the margins, despite many of its elements being adopted
into conventional systems (Whitescarver and Cossentino 2008). Some think this is because
Montessori is too expensive, but when done the way Montessori described, it is actually not
more expensive than conventional schooling (Kahn 1990). Other concerns are raised (like worry
that it is not academically rigorous, Debs 2019), but I think the deeper reason for Montessori’s odd
position of being admired yet shunned is its incommensurability with the culture of conventional
schooling. Montessori requires a paradigm shift in how one thinks about school (Cossentino
2005), given how deeply steeped we are in the conventional system.
956 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

The Conventional School Paradigm

The conventional school system has existed since the mid-1800s, with some minor adjust-
ments. Two cornerstones support the edifice: the factory model (Callahan 1962) which
Dintersmith (2018, p. 4) concluded is Bstill with us to this day,^ and the behaviorist model
of the child (Resnick and Hall 1998; Thorndike 1913). These two models support our
Bgrammar of schooling^ (Tyack and Cuban 1995). This grammar includes the notions that
students are Bgraded^ into levels: 1st grade, 2nd grade, and so on, and that within levels, they
might be further Bgraded^ into gifted, regular, or Bslow^ groups. Teachers deliver information.
Desks often face a teacher’s desk behind which hangs a blackboard. A bell marks the
beginning and end of prescribed learning periods, often 50 min. Textbooks supplement and/
or reinforce what the teacher delivers. These texts divide subject areas, and children learn
discretely their math, English, and so on; information across subjects typically does not
connect. Tests are given periodically, and students get marks on those tests, which determine
when the child changes grades. Children learn and are tested individually. And so on. The
conventional system is deeply engrained in most people, and fundamentally, Blittle has
changed^ (Tyack and Cuban 1995, p. 85) over the years.
However, because it is not entirely satisfactory, this system has been Btinkered^ with
repeatedly (for example, by removing marks, combining ages, using more hands-on materials,
putting desks in clusters, collaborative learning, and so on), and some argue that school reform
will always consist merely of Btinkering^ with this basic system because the grammar is so
deeply held. Montessori education violates almost every aspect of this grammar and, thus,
requires massive translation. Even though research supports basic elements of Montessori, as
reviewed above, the Montessori system is in many ways incommensurable with conventional
schooling.
This incommensurability is apparent in responses to findings that children in authentic
Montessori classrooms fare better than children in business-as-usual schools (reviewed earlier).
Specifically, in response to these findings, people often ask what elements of Montessori make
the difference (Marshall 2017)—for example, is it the teacher, the free choice, the peer
learning, or the embodied materials? In the context of conventional schooling, this question
seems sensible: One tries different things, inserting and deleting elements, trying to improve it,
Tinkering Toward Utopia (Tyack and Cuban 1995). This is how minor changes have been
made to conventional education. But which elements make the difference is a wrong question,
because Montessori—and I would argue conventional school as well—is all the elements in an
interconnected, self-reinforcing whole (Fig. 2 shows some of the elements).

Cross-Cultural and Cultural Psychology: an Analogy

An analogous situation previously existed for cross-cultural psychology and cultural psychol-
ogy. Cross-cultural psychology, or the study of how people in different cultures are psycho-
logically different, emerged in the early 1900s from a foundation of logical positivism, which
undergirds modern science. Logical positivism is the view that truth requires sensory evidence,
and a key tenet is that entities can be broken into parts that can be systematically examined.
Much of science today proceeds from that assumption, and it was the guiding assumption of
the field of cross-cultural psychology, comparing people from different cultures (Shweder
1999). Taking this approach, one might ask what elements of American culture make
Americans individualistic, and what elements of an Asian culture make Asians collectivistic:
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 957

childhood sleeping or transportation arrangements, how the BI^ is ensconced in one’s lan-
guage, and so on. A corollary is that if one transferred the right element(s) of Asian culture to
America, Americans would become more collectivistic. The conventional schooling system
emerged in America around 1900 coincident with logical positivist behaviorism, and so it
makes sense that conventional schooling is viewed as a collection of independent parts.
Cultural psychology, which gained traction in the 1990s, has a different concept of the
person and world than has cross-cultural psychology. Specifically, cultural psychology views
the person and culture dialectically, such that culture and mind make each other up (Kim and
Sasaki 2014; Shweder 1999). A person cannot be separated from culture; a person’s mind
develops in and with the culture that surrounds it. Likewise, cultures are made up of the minds
that embody their values, practices, artifacts, and so on. Hence, for cultural psychologists, it
does not make sense to think of pulling out elements of a culture to see which aspects of
culture influence which aspects of people. Although one examines aspects of each, one does so
with respect to the fact that there is a whole with which those aspects are inextricably
entwined.

Cultural Psychology as a Framework for Understanding School

All schooling, including Montessori schooling, is more profitably viewed in this cultural
psychology frame, in two ways. First, any school culture creates minds, ways of thinking
about school and the world. A mind that was formed in Montessori schooling is made up
differently than a mind formed in the culture of conventional schooling. For example, children
in Montessori schools engage in learning for learning’s sake because there are no grades. This
might create selves that are more mastery oriented, and less performance oriented, and there is
some evidence that this is the case for children in Montessori (Haimovitz and Dweck 2017;
Lillard et al. 2017). In addition, a survey of 230 former Montessori students (about half of
whom were in Montessori through 6th grade) showed that 72% strongly agreed and virtually
none disagreed with the statement that they felt capable and confident in their abilities while in
Montessori; numbers were similar for BWhile in Montessori, I was happy to be at school^
(Cyvas 2010). I would argue that Montessori created this sense, supported by the lottery study
finding that it created stronger mastery orientations (Lillard et al. 2017). Most students do not
feel capable, confident, and happy in (conventional) schools, resulting in a plethora of
Bpositive psychology^ interventions that try to help (Waters 2011).
Second, school systems are cultures in that they have myriad practices and artifacts that
reinforce each other, making the whole greater than the sum of its parts. In fact, difficulties
with really improving our conventional system might be due to the failure to see it as a cultural
whole, rather than as a collection of parts. People try differentiated instruction (Tomlinson and
Kalbfleisch 1998), for example, but because it is challenging to fit a psychologically valid
principle like respecting that children differ into the behaviorist-factory edifice of conventional
school grammar (Santangelo and Tomlinson 2012) that assumes children are uniform Braw
products^ (Cubberly 1916/1929, p. 512), the reform might not get traction.
A reason Montessori is shunned might be its incommensurability with this conventional
school culture. When Montessori wrote, BI am talking about a revolution^ (Montessori 2017)
with regard to schooling, she meant revolution. Revolutions bring in entirely new cultural
systems—the American revolution with its Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Common Law; the
Maoist revolution with its collective farms and communist doctrine. Perhaps most exemplary
here is scientific revolution (Kuhn 1962). In changing from the Ptolemic (earth-centered) to the
958 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

heliocentric view of the universe, people’s entire world view was disrupted. The Great Chain
of Being, with the human as the center and ultimate end, with the authority to name all
creatures, gradually ceded to Darwinian evolution, where unintentional processes guide
phylogeny, with the fittest surviving, rather than those ordained to survive by a distant
interested being. A new set of concepts arrived with this scientific revolution, bringing with
it new ontological distinctions.
The shift from conventional schooling to Montessori is a revolution in this sense. The goals
and approaches, vocabulary, and grammar that undergird these different ways of schooling are
radically different; Montessori is conceptualized as an Baid to life,^ a cultural system to help
children develop into optimally healthy adults.

Incommensurability and Weak Implementation

It stands to reason that if people do not understand something well, particularly some-
thing complex and very different from what they know, they might well fail to implement
it properly. Perhaps a corollary to cultural incommensurability that is another reason for
its being shunned is that Montessori is all too often not properly implemented (Debs
2019). There is no trademark on the term (Whitescarver and Cossentino 2008), and
although most Montessori classrooms in many ways function similarly the world over,
implementations do vary (Daoust 2004)—I have seen desks in rows with computers and
no materials, and timers limiting children’s work time, and children filling out
worksheets instead of using Montessori materials, all in classrooms that call themselves
Montessori—but these are clear violations of core principles. Implementation problems
are especially likely when principals or teachers have no Montessori training, as too
often happens. Even within Montessori training, there is variation, from in-depth year-
long courses taught by highly trained teacher-trainers who adhere tightly to Montessori’s
system (AMI courses) to superficial courses taught by people without deep knowledge
who urge creatively changing it (Debs 2019). The deeper difficulty from which these
variations in implementation emerge is cultural incommensurability: Montessori is very
different from school as we know it, understanding Montessori requires deep and
sustained study, and when people change it they typically make it more like our cultural
concept of school, which is anathema. People see poorly run classrooms that call
themselves Montessori and decide based on poor exemplars that Montessori is ineffec-
tive. (For more on implementation, see Lillard and McHugh 2019a, b).

Summary

In sum, Montessori is very different from, even incommensurable with the conventional
school system most people know very well. Discomfort with this difference may be the deep
reason it is shunned—beyond more superficial reasons like (incorrectly) thinking it costs too
much. The incommensurability also underlies poor implementation that can also be a reason
for dismissing Montessori. Understanding a very different alternative system requires adopting
a different cultural lens and forging a deep shift in one’s concepts and theories. Because of
resistance or inability, people who implement Montessori—school administrators and teachers,
sometimes with no training—sometimes do so with poor fidelity. Others see these poorly
implemented programs that do not function well, and fail to realize it is actually pseudo-
Montessori that they disdain.
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 959

Conclusion

Unlike many other unconventional educational systems, Montessori education has not faded
away, but is increasingly implemented in the public sector and around the world. And unlike
the conventional system, Montessori is virtually unchanged since the first half of the 1900s.
Yet even the conventional system has not radically changed, because it is an entrenched
cultural system that we try to improve by treating it as a logical positivist collection of parts.
Real school reform may require radical change.
Montessori is also a cultural system and it has lasted as such because of its admirable
outcomes (although more research is needed), alignment with educational psychology re-
search, and breadth. At the same time, Montessori is often shunned and is oddly left out of
discussions of school reform. I pose that this is because of its incommensurability with the
culture of schooling, which can lead to poor implementation. Since the term is not
trademarked, examples of poor Montessori or even Montessori-in-name-only abound. Yet
the positive elements of this system, and its compatibility with current findings in psycholog-
ical research, suggest that it warrants a closer look and more research to determine whether it
could be a useful alternative model for schooling in the twenty-first century.
Education is the help we must give to life so that it may develop in the greatness of its
powers. To help those great forces which bring the child, inert at birth, unintelligent and
unsympathetic, to the greatness of the adult being—this should be the plan of
education—to see what help we can give. Before we help, we must understand; we must
follow the path from childhood to adulthood. If we can understand, we can help, and this
help must be the plan of education: to help develop not humans’ defects, but their greatness.
(Montessori 2012, p. 6)

Acknowledgements Jackie Cossentino, Rachel Keen, and Lee Leboeuf all gave helpful comments on an earlier
draft of this manuscript. I also thank Bridget Hamre who inspired this article with a simple question: BDo you
really think it's better?^

Funding Information During writing, the author was supported by grant R305A180181 from the Institute for
Education Sciences, grant #56225 from the Sir John Templeton Foundation, and grants from the Brady
Education, LEGO, Wend Ventures, and Wildflower Foundations.

Open Access This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and repro-
duction in any medium, provided you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a
link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made.

References

Alfieri, L., Brooks, P. J., Aldrich, N. J., & Tenenbaum, H. R. (2010). Does discovery-based instruction enhance
learning? Journal of Educational Psychology, 103(1), 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0021017.
Ames, C. (1992). Classrooms: goals, structures, and student motivation. Journal of Educational Psychology,
84(3), 261–271.
Ansari, A., & Winsler, A. (2014). Montessori public school pre-K programs and the school readiness of low-
income Black and Latino children. Journal of Educational Psychology, 106(4), 1066–1079. https://doi.
org/10.1037/a0036799.
Aronson, E., & Patnoe, S. (1997). The jigsaw classroom: building cooperation in the classroom (2nd ed.). New
York: Longman.
960 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

Azmitia, M. (1996). Peer interactive minds: developmental, theoretical, and methodological issues. In P. B.
Baltes & U. M. Staudinger (Eds.), Interactive minds: life-span perspectives on the social foundation of
cognition. New York: Cambridge University Press.
Bara, F., Gentaz, E., & Cole, P. (2007). Haptics in learning to read with children from low socio-economic status
families. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 25(4), 643–663.
Barrett, P., Davies, F., Zhang, Y., & Barrett, L. (2015). The impact of classroom design on pupils’ learning: final
results of a holistic, multi-level analysis. Building and Environment, 89, 118–133.
Barsalou, L. W. (2008). Grounded cognition. Annual Review of Psychology, 59(1), 617–645.
Barsalou, L. W. (2010). Grounded cognition: past, present, and future. Topics in Cognitive Science, 2(4), 716–724.
Baumann, H. (1999). On the historical background of Montessori-Piaget relations. AMI Communications, 23, 6–20.
Baumrind, D. (1989). Rearing competent children. In W. Damon (Ed.), Child development today and tomorrow
(pp. 349–378). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Berlyne, D. (1960). Conflict, arousal, and curiosity. New York: McGraw Hill.
Bhatia, P., Davis, A., & Shamas-Brandt, E. (2015). Educational gymnastics: the effectiveness of Montessori
practical life activities in developing fine motor skills in kindergartners. Early Education and Development,
26(4), 594–607. https://doi.org/10.1080/10409289.2015.995454.
Blair, C., & Raver, C. C. (2015). School readiness and self-regulation: a developmental psychobiological
approach. Annual Review of Psychology, 66(1), 711–731. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010814-
015221.
Brown, K. E., & Lewis, C. (2017). A comparison of reading and math achievement for African American third
grade students in Montessori and other magnet schools. Journal of Negro Education, 86(4), 439–448.
https://doi.org/10.7709/jnegroeducation.86.4.0439.
Brown, A. L., & Palincsar, A. S. (1989). Guided, cooperative learning and individual knowledge acquisition.
Knowing, learning, and instruction: essays in honor of Robert Glaser, 393–451.
Brown, K. E., & Steele, A. S. (2015). Racial discipline disproportionality in Montessori and traditional public
schools: a comparative study using the relative rate index. Journal of Montessori Research, 1(1), 14–27.
Bullard, J. (2013). Creating environments for learning: birth to age eight. Upper Saddle: Prentice-Hall.
Byrge, L., Sporns, O., & Smith, L. B. (2014). Developmental process emerges from extended brain–body–
behavior networks. Trends in Cognitive Sciences., 18(8), 395–403.
Caldwell, C. A., Yussen, S. R., & Peterson, P. (1981). Beliefs about teaching in Montessori and non-Montessori
preschool teachers. Journal of Teacher Education, 32(2), 41–44.
Callahan, R. E. (1962). Education and the cult of efficiency. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Cameron, C. E., Brock, L. L., Murrah, W. M., Bell, L. H., Worzalla, S. L., Grissmer, D., & Morrison, F. J. (2012).
Fine motor skills and executive function both contribute to kindergarten achievement. Child Development,
83(4), 1229–1244.
Chertoff, E. (2012). The great Montessori schism: the divisive history of the popular school system, and what it
teaches us about education and change. The Atlantic.
Clark, A. (2013). Gesture as thought. The hand, an organ of the mind: what the manual tells the mental, 255–268.
Cockburn, A., & Haydn, T. (2003). Recruiting and retaining teachers: understanding why teachers teach.
London: Routledge.
Corpus, J. H., & Wormington, S. V. (2014). Profiles of intrinsic and extrinsic motivations in elementary school: a
longitudinal analysis. The Journal of Experimental Education, 82(4), 480–501.
Cossentino, J. (2005). Ritualizing expertise: a non-montessorian view of the Montessori method. American
Journal of Education, 111, 211–244 0195-6744/2005/11102-0004.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: the psychology of optimal experience. New York: Harper Perennial.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1997). Finding flow: the psychology of engagement with everyday life. New York: Basic
Books, Inc..
Cubberly, E. P. (1916/1929). Public school administration (3rd ed.). Boston: Houghton Mifflin/Riverside.
Culclasure, B., Fleming, D. J., & Riga, G. (2018). An evaluation of Montessori education in South Carolina’s
public schools. Greenville: The Riley Institute at Furman University.
Cyvas, R. B. (2010). Former Montessori students reflect on their schooling. B.A., Lake Forest College.
Daoust, C. J. (2004). An examination of implementation practices in Montessori early childhood education. PhD,
University of California, Berkeley.
Davis, C. M. (1928). Self selection of diet by newly weaned infants: an experimental study. American Journal of
Diseases of Children, 36, 651–679.
Davis, C. M. (1939). Results of the self-selection of diets by young children. Canadian Medical Association
Journal, 41(3), 257–261.
Davis, H. A. (2003). Conceptualizing the role and influence of student-teacher relationships on children’s social
and cognitive development. Educational Psychologist, 38(4), 207–234.
De Charms, R. (1976). Enhancing motivation: a change in the classroom. New York: Irvington.
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 961

de Silva Joyce, H., & Feez, S. (Eds.). (2018). Multimodality across classrooms. Abingdon: Routlege.
Deary, I. J., Bell, P. J., Bell, A. J., Campbell, M. L., & Fazal, N. D. (2004). Sensory discrimination and
intelligence: testing Spearman’s other hypothesis. The American Journal of Psychology, 117(1), 1–18.
Debs, M. C. (2016). Racial and economic diversity in US public Montessori schools. Journal of Montessori
Research, 2(2), 15–34.
Debs, M. C. (2019). Diverse parents, desirable schools: public Montessori in an era of school choice.
Cambridge: Harvard Education Press.
Debs, M. C., & Brown, K. E. (2017). Students of color and public Montessori schools: a review of the literature.
Journal of Montessori Research, 3(1), 1–15.
Deci, E. L., & Ryan, R. M. (2011). Self-determination theory. In P. A. M. V. Lange, A. W. Kruglanski, & E. T.
Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of theories of social psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 416–433). London: Sage.
Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of experiments examining the effects of
extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation. Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627–668.
Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (2001). Extrinsic rewards and intrinsic motivation in education:
reconsidered once again. Review of Educational Research, 71(1), 1–27.
Diamond, A., & Lee, K. (2011). How can we help children succeed in the 21st century? What the scientific
evidence shows aids executive function development in children 4-12 years of age. Science, 333(6045),
959–964. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1204529.
Dintersmith, T. (2018). What school could be: Insights and inspiration from teachers across America. Princeton:
Princeton University Press.
Dohrmann, K. R., Nishida, T. K., Gartner, A., Lipsky, D. K., & Grimm, K. J. (2007). High school outcomes for
students in a public Montessori program. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 22(2), 205–217.
Drake, K., Belsky, J., & Fearon, R. (2014). From early attachment to engagement with learning in school: the role
of self-regulation and persistence. Developmental Psychology, 50(5), 1350–1362.
Dweck, C. S. (2019). The choice to make a difference. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14(1), 21–25.
Estes, T. H., & Vaughan, J. L. (1973). Reading interest and comprehension: implications. The Reading Teacher,
27, 149–153.
Evans, G. W. (2006). Child development and the physical environment. Annual Review of Psychology, 57(1),
423–451.
Fantuzzo, J. W., King, J. A., & Heller, L. R. (1992). Effects of reciprocal peer tutoring on mathematics and school
adjustment: a component analysis. Journal of Educational Psychology, 84(3), 331–339.
Feez, S. (2018). Multimodality in the Montessori classroom. In H. de Silva Joyce & S. Feez (Eds.), Multimodality
across classrooms (pp. 30–48). Abingdon: Routledge.
Franc, B., & Subotic, V. (2015). Differences in phonological awareness of five-year-olds from Montessori and
regular program preschool institutions.
Frankel, L. A., Hughes, S. O., O'Connor, T. M., Power, T. G., Fisher, J. O., & Hazen, N. L. (2012). Parental
influences on children’s self-regulation of energy intake: insights from developmental literature on emotion
regulation. Journal of Obesity, 2012, 327259–327212. https://doi.org/10.1155/2012/327259.
Ginsburg-Block, M. D., Rohrbeck, C. A., & Fantuzzo, J. W. (2006). A meta-analytic review of social, self-concept,
and behavioral outcomes of peer-assisted learning. Journal of Educational Psychology, 98(4), 732–749.
Greenwood, C. R., Delquadri, J. C., & Hall, R. V. (1989). Longitudinal effects of classwide peer tutoring. Journal
of Educational Psychology, 81(3), 371–383.
Grissmer, D., Grimm, K. J., Aiyer, S. M., Murrah, W. M., & Steele, J. S. (2010). Fine motor skills and early
comprehension of the world: two new school readiness indicators. Developmental Psychology, 46(5), 1008–1017.
Haimovitz, K., & Dweck, C. S. (2017). The origins of children’s growth and fixed mindsets: new research and a
new proposal. Child Development, 88(6), 1849–1859.
Harackiewicz, J. M., Smith, J. L., & Priniski, S. J. (2016). Interest matters: the importance of promoting interest
in education. Policy Insights From the Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 3(2), 220–227.
Hari, R., Karhu, J., Hämäläinen, M., Knuutila, J., Salonen, O., Sams, M., & Vilkman, V. (1993). Functional
organization of the human first and second somatosensory cortices: a neuromagnetic study. European
Journal of Neuroscience, 5(6), 724–734.
Hartup, W. W. (1983). Peer relations. In E. M. Hetherington (Ed.), Vol. 4: socialization, personality, and social
development (pp. 103–196). New York: Wiley.
Hidi, S., & Renninger, K. A. (2006). The four-phase model of interest development. Educational Psychologist,
41(2), 111–127.
Hiles, E. (2018). Parents’ reasons for sending their child to Montessori schools. Journal of Montessori Research,
4, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.17161/jomr.v4i1.6714.
İman, E. D., Danişman, Ş., Akin Demircan, Z., & Yaya, D. (2017). The effect of the Montessori education
method on pre-school children’s social competence–behaviour and emotion regulation skills. Early Child
Development and Care, 1–15.
962 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

Iyengar, S. S., & Lepper, M. R. (1999). Rethinking the value of choice: a cultural perspective on intrinsic
motivation. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 76(3), 349–366.
James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology (vol. 1). New York: Henry Holt.
James, K. H. (2017). The importance of handwriting experience on the development of the literate brain. Current
Directions in Psycholgical Science, 26(6), 502–508.
Johnson, S. L., McPhee, L., & Birch, L. L. (1991). Conditioned preferences: young children prefer flavors
associated with high dietary fat. Physiology & Behavior, 50(6), 1245–1251.
Jonich, G. M. (Ed.). (1962). Psychology and the science of education: selected writings of Edward L. Thorndike.
New York: Teacher’s College Press.
Kahn, D. (1990). Implementing Montessori in the public sector. ERIC ID ED327286 https://eric.ed.gov/?id=
ED327286.
Kayılı, G. (2018). The effect of Montessori method on cognitive tempo of kindergarten children. Early Child
Development and Care, 188, 327–355. https://doi.org/10.1080/03004430.2016.1217849.
Kayılı, G., & Arı, R. (2016). The effect of Montessori method supported by social skills training program on
Turkish kindergarten children’s skills of understanding feelings and social problem solving. Journal of
Education and Training Studies, 4, 81–91.
Kidd, C., Piantadosi, S. T., & Aslin, R. N. (2012). The Goldilocks effect: human infants allocate attention to
visual sequences that are neither too simple nor too complex. PLoS One, 7(5), e36399. https://doi.
org/10.1371/journal.pone.0036399.
Kidd, C., Piantadosi, S. T., & Aslin, R. N. (2014). The Goldilocks effect in infant auditory attention. Child
Development, 85(5), 1795–1804.
Kim, H. S., & Sasaki, J. Y. (2014). Cultural neuroscience: biology of the mind in cultural contexts. Annual
Review of Psychology, 65(1), 487–514.
Klahr, D., & Nigam, M. (2004). The equivalence of learning paths in early science instruction. Effects of direct
instruction and discovery learning. Psychological Science, 15(10), 661–667. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.0956-
7976.2004.00737.x.
Kubovy, M. (1999). Pleasures of the mind. In D. Kahneman, E. Diener, & N. Schwartz (Eds.), Well-being: the
foundations of hedonic psychology (pp. 134–154). New York: Russsell Sage Foundation.
Kuhn, T. S. (1962). The structure of scientific revolutions. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M. (1999). Philosophy in the flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western
thought. New York: Basic Books.
Laski, E. V., Vasilyeva, M., & Shiffman, J. (2016). Longitudinal comparison of place-value and arithmetic
knowledge in Montessori and non-Montessori-students. Journal of Montessori Research, 2(1), 1–15.
Lepper, M. R., & Henderlong, J. (2000). Turning Bplay^ into Bwork^ and Bwork^ into Bplay^: 25 years of
research on intrinsic versus extrinsic motivation. In C. Sansone & J. M. Harackiewicz (Eds.), Intrinsic and
extrinsic motivation: the search for optimal motivation and performance (pp. 257–307). San Diego:
Academic.
Lepper, M. R., Corpus, J. H., & Iyengar, S. S. (2005). Intrinsic and extrinsic motivational orientations in the
classroom: age differences and academic correlates. Journal of Educational Psychology, 97(2), 184–196.
Levin, I., Siegler, R. S., & Druyan, S. (1990). Misconceptions about motion: development and training effects.
Child Development, 61(5), 1544–1557.
Lillard, A. S. (2012). Preschool children’s development in classic Montessori, supplemented Montessori, and
conventional programs. Journal of School Psychology, 50(3), 379–401. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.
jsp.2012.01.001.
Lillard, A. S. (2017). Montessori: the science behind the genius (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press.
Lillard, A. S. (2018). Rethinking education: Montessori’s approach. Current Directions in Psychological Science,
27, 395–400. https://doi.org/10.1177/0963721418769878.
Lillard, A. S., & Else-Quest, N. (2006). Evaluating Montessori education. Science, 313(5795), 1893–1894.
https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1132362.
Lillard, A. S., & Erisir, A. (2011). Old dogs learning new tricks: neuroplasticity before and after critical periods.
Developmental Review, 31(4), 207–239. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dr.2011.07.008.
Lillard, A. S., & Heise, M. J. (2016). Removing supplementary materials from Montessori classrooms changed
child outcomes. Journal of Montessori Research, 2, 17–27.
Lillard, A. S., & McHugh, V. (2019a). Authentic Montessori: The dotteressa’s view at the end of her life part I:
The environment. Journal of Montessori Research. (In press).
Lillard, A. S., & McHugh, V. (2019b). Authentic Montessori: The dotteressa’s view at the end of her life part II:
The teacher and the child. Journal of Montessori Research. (In press).
Lillard, A. S., Heise, M. J. R., Eve, M., Tong, X., Hart, A., & Bray, P. M. (2017). Montessori preschool elevates
and equalizes child outcomes: a longitudinal study. Frontiers in Psychology, 8. https://doi.org/10.3389
/fpsyg.2017.01783.
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 963

Lopata, C., Wallace, N. V., & Finn, K. V. (2005). Comparison of academic achievement between Montessori and
traditional education programs. Journal of Research in Childhood Education, 20(1), 5–13.
Malm, B. (2004). Constructing professional identities: Montessori teachers’ voices and visions. Scandinavian
Journal of Educational Research, 48(4), 397–412.
Marshall, C. (2017). Montessori education: a review of the evidence base. Science of Learning, 2, 11. https://doi.
org/10.1038/s41539-017-0012-7.
Mayer, R. E. (2004). Should there be a three-strikes rule against pure discovery learning? American Psychologist,
59(1), 14–19. https://doi.org/10.1037/0003-066X.59.1.14.
Mayer, R. E. (2008). Applying the science of learning: evidence-based principles for the design of multimedia
instruction. American Psychologist, 63(8), 760–769.
Melnick, M. D., Harrison, B. R., Park, S., Bennetto, L., & Tadin, D. (2013). A strong interactive link between
sensory discriminations and intelligence. Current Biology, 23(11), 1013–1017.
Merzenich, M. M. (2001). Cortical plasticity contributing to child development. In J. L. McClelland & R. S.
Siegler (Eds.), Mechanisms of cognitive development: behavioral and neural perspectives. Carnegie Mellon
symposia on cognition (pp. 67–95). Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Mix, K. S., Smith, L. B., Stockton, J. D. S., Cheng, Y.-L., & Barterian, J. A. (2017). Grounding the symbols for
place value: evidence from training and long term exposure to base-10 models. Journal of Cognition and
Development, 18(1), 129–151. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2016.1180296.
Miyatsu, T., Nguyen, K., & McDaniel, M. A. (2018). Five popular study strategies: their pitfalls and optimal
implementations. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 13(3), 390–407.
Moffitt, T. E., Arseneault, L., Belsky, D., Dickson, N., Hancox, R. J., Harrington, H. L., et al. (2011). A gradient
of childhood self-control predicts health, wealth, and public safety. Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 108, 2693–2698.
Montessori, M. (1917/1965). Spontaneous activity in education: the advanced Montessori method (F.
Simmonds, Trans.). New York: Schocken.
Montessori, M. (1934/2011). Psychogeometry (Vol. 16). Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing.
Montessori, M. (1946/1963). Education for a new world. Madras: Kalakshetra.
Montessori, M. (1948a). To educate the human potential. Madras: Kalakshetra Publications.
Montessori, M. (1948b). From childhood to adolescence. New York: Schocken.
Montessori, M. (1955/1989). The formation of man. Oxford: Clio Press.
Montessori, M. (1956). The child in the family (N. R. Cirillo, Trans. New York: Avon.
Montessori, M. (1961/2007). What you should know about your child (A. G. Prakasam, Trans.). Amsterdam:
Montessori-Pierson.
Montessori, M. (1962/1967). The discovery of the child (M. J. Costello, Trans.). New York: Ballantine.
Montessori, M. (1966). The secret of childhood (M. J. Costello, Trans. New York: Ballantine.
Montessori, M. (1967/1995). The absorbent mind (C. A. Claremont, Trans.). New York: Henry Holt.
Montessori, M. (1989). The child, society, and the world: Unpublished speeches and writings (Vol. 7). Oxford:
Clio Press.
Montessori, M. (1994). Creative development in the child I (R. Ramachandran, Trans. Madras: Kalakshetra Press.
Montessori, M. (1997). The California lectures of Maria Montessori, 1915. Oxford: Clio.
Montessori, M. (2012). The 1946 London lectures. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing.
Montessori, M. (2013). The 1913 Rome lectures. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing.
Montessori, M. (2017). Montessori speaks to parents. Amsterdam: Montessori-Pierson Publishing.
National Center for Montessori in the Public Sector. (2014). Growth of public Montessori in the United States:
1975-2014. Retrieved 14 April 2019, from https://www.public-montessori.org/white-papers/growth-of-
public-montessori-in-the-united-states-1975-2014/.
Needham, A. (2000). Improvements in object exploration skills may facilitate the development of object
segregation in early infancy. Journal of Cognition & Development, 1(2), 131–156.
Pakarinen, E., Lerkkanen, M.-K., Poikkeus, A.-M., Salminen, J., Silinskas, G., Siekkinen, M., & Nurmi, J.-E.
(2017). Longitudinal associations between teacher-child interactions and academic skills in elementary
school. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 52, 191–202.
Patall, E. A. (2013). Constructing motivation through choice, interest, and interestingness. Journal of
Educational Psychology, 105(2), 522–534.
Pate, R. R., O’Neill, J. R., Byun, W., McIver, K. L., Dowda, M., & Brown, W. H. (2014). Physical activity in
preschool children: comparison between Montessori and traditional preschools. Journal of School Health,
84(11), 716–721.
Peng, H.-H., & Md-Yunus, S. (2014). Do children in Montessori schools perform better in the achievement test?
A Taiwanese perspective. International Journal of Early Childhood, 46(2), 299–311.
Petersen, S. E., & Posner, M. I. (2012). The attention system of the human brain: 20 years after. Annual Review of
Neuroscience, 35(1), 73–89.
964 Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965

Piaget, J. (1970). Science of education and the psychology of the child (D. Coltman, Trans. New York: Orion Press.
Pianta, R. C. (1997). Adult–child relationship processes and early schooling. Early Education and Development,
8(1), 11–26.
Pianta, R. C., La Paro, K. M., Payne, C., Cox, M. J., & Bradley, R. (2002). The relation of kindergarten
classroom environment to teacher, family, and school characteristics and child outcomes. The Elementary
School Journal, 102(3), 225–238.
Plötner, M., Over, H., Carpenter, M., & Tomasello, M. (2015). The effects of collaboration and minimal-group
membership on children’s prosocial behavior, liking, affiliation, and trust. Journal of Experimental Child
Psychology, 139, 161–173.
Pouw, W. T., de Nooijer, J. A., van Gog, T., Zwaan, R. A., & Paas, F. (2014a). Toward a more embedded/
extended perspective on the cognitive function of gestures. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 359.
Pouw, W. T., Van Gog, T., & Paas, F. (2014b). An embedded and embodied cognition review of instructional
manipulatives. Educational Psychology Review, 26(1), 51–72.
Rathunde, K. R. (2009). Montessori and embodied education. In P. A. Woods & G. J. Woods (Eds.), Alternative
education for the 21st century (pp. 189–208). New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Rathunde, K. R., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1993). Undivided interest and the growth of talent: a longitudinal
study of adolescents. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 22(4), 385–405.
Rathunde, K. R., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2005a). Middle school students’ motivation and quality of experience:
a comparison of Montessori and traditional school environments. American Journal of Education, 111(3),
341–371.
Rathunde, K. R., & Csikszentmihalyi, M. (2005b). The social context of middle school: teachers, friends, and
activities in Montessori and traditional school environments. Elementary School Journal, 106(1), 59–79.
Renninger, K. A. (1992). Individual interest and development: implications for theory and practice. In K. A.
Renninger, S. Hidi, & A. Krapp (Eds.), The role of interest in learning and development. Hillsdale: Erlbaum.
Renninger, K. A., & Bachrach, J. E. (2015). Studying triggers for interest and engagement using observational
methods. Educational Psychologist, 50(1), 58–69.
Renninger, K. A., & Hidi, S. (2011). Revisiting the conceptualization, measurement, and generation of interest.
Educational Psychologist, 46(3), 168–184.
Resnick, L. B., & Hall, M. W. (1998). Learning organizations for sustainable education reform. Daedalus, 127,
89–118.
Rogoff, B. (2004). The cultural nature of human development. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rogoff, B., Turkanis, C. G., & Bartlett, L. (Eds.). (2001). Learning together: children and adults in a school
community. New York: Oxford University Press.
Rogoff, B., Callanan, M., Gutiérrez, K. D., & Erickson, F. (2016). The organization of informal learning. Review
of Research in Education, 40(1), 356–401.
Romani, G. L., Williamson, S. J., & Kaufman, L. (1982). Tonotopic organization of the human auditory cortex.
Science, 216(4552), 1339–1340. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.7079770.
Rovee-Collier, C., Hayne, H., Collier, G., Griesler, P. C., & Rovee, G. B. (1996). Diet selection by chicks.
Developmental Psychobiology, 29(3), 241–272.
Ruijs, N. (2017). The effects of Montessori education: evidence from admission lotteries. Economics of
Education Review, 61, 19–34.
Rule, A., & Stewart, R. (2002). Effects of practical life materials on kindergartners’ fine motor skills. Early
Childhood Education Journal, 30(1), 9–13.
Rumbaugh, D. M., & Washburn, D. A. (1996). Attention and memory in relation to learning: a comparative
adaptation perspective. In G. R. Lyon & N. A. Krasnegor (Eds.), Attention, memory, and executive function
(pp. 199–220). Baltimore: Brookes.
Ryan, R. M., & Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social
development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68–78.
Santangelo, T., & Tomlinson, C. A. (2012). Teacher educators’ perceptions and use of differentiated instruction
practices: an exploratory investigation. Action in Teacher Education, 34(4), 309–327.
Schwartz, D. L., & Black, T. (1999). Inferences through imagined actions: knowing by simulated doing. Journal
of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 25, 116–136.
Shweder, R. A. (1999). Why cultural psychology? Ethos, 27(1), 62–73.
Siegler, R. S. (1998). Children’s thinking (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River: Prentice-Hall.
Simon, H. A. (2001). BSeek and ye shall find^: how curiosity engenders discovery. In K. Crowley, C. D. Schunn,
& T. Okada (Eds.), Designing for science: implications from everyday, classroom, and professional settings.
Mahwah: Lawrence Erlbaum.
Smith, L., & Thelen, E. (2003). Development as a dynamic system. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 7(8), 343–348.
Sommerville, J. A., Woodward, A. L., & Needham, A. (2005). Action experience alters 3-month-old infants’
perception of others’ actions. Cognition, 96(1), B1–B11.
Educational Psychology Review (2019) 31:939–965 965

Stams, G.-J. J. M., Juffer, F., & van Ijzendoorn, M. H. (2002). Maternal sensitivity, infant attachment, and
temperament in early childhood predict adjustment in middle childhood: the case of adopted children and
their biologically unrelated parents. Developmental Psychology, 38(5), 806–821.
Stewart, R. A., Rule, A. C., & Giordano, D. A. (2007). The effect of fine motor skill activities on kindergarten
student attention. Early Childhood Education Journal, 35(2), 103–109.
Stiles, J., Brown, T. T., Haist, F., & Jernigan, T. L. (2015). Brain and cognitive development. In L. S. Liben & U.
Mueller (Eds.), Handbook of child psychology and developmental science: cognitive processes 7th ed. (Vol.
2, pp. 9–62). New York: Wiley-Blackwell.
Thoman, D. B., Sansone, C., Fraughton, T., & Pasupathi, M. (2012). How students socially evaluate interest: peer
responsiveness influences evaluation and maintenance of interest. Contemporary Educational Psychology,
37(4), 254–265.
Thorndike, E. L. (1913). Educational psychology (Vol. 2). New York: Teacher’s College.
Tobias, S. (1994). Interest, prior knowledge, and learning. Review of Educational Research, 64(1), 37–54.
Tomlinson, C., & Kalbfleisch, M. (1998). Teach me, teach my brain: a call for differentiated classrooms.
Educational Leadership, 56, 52–55.
Tyack, D. B., & Cuban, L. (1995). Tinkering toward utopia. Boston: Harvard University Press.
U.S. Department of Education. (2016). Teacher job satisfaction Data Point (Vol. NCES-2016-131). Washington
DC: Institute for Education Sciences.
Verdine, B., Golinkoff, R. M., Hirsh-Pasek, K., & Newcombe, N. (2017). Links between spatial and mathemat-
ical skills across the preschool years. Society for Research in Child Development Monograph, 82.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Walsh, B. A., & Petty, K. (2007). Frequency of six early childhood education approaches: a 10-year content
analysis of early childhood education journal. Early Childhood Education Journal, 34(5), 301–305.
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10643-006-0080-4.
Walsh, R., & Shapiro, S. L. (2006). The meeting of meditative disciplines and western psychology: a mutually
enriching dialogue. American Psychologist, 61(3), 227–239.
Waters, L. (2011). A review of school-based positive psychology interventions. The Educational and
Developmental Psychologist, 28(02), 75–90.
Watson, J. S. (1971). Cognitive-perceptual development in infancy: setting for the seventies. Merrill-Palmer
Quarterly, 17, 139–152.
Whitehurst, G. J., & Lonigan, C. J. (1998). Child development and emergent literacy. Child Development, 69(3),
848–872.
Whitescarver, K., & Cossentino, J. (2007). Lessons from the periphery: the role of dispositions in Montessori
teacher training. Journal of Educational Controversy, 2, 1–12.
Whitescarver, K., & Cossentino, J. (2008). Montessori and the mainstream: a century of reform on the margins.
Teachers College Record, 110, 2571–2600.
Wilson, M. (2002). Six views of embodied cognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 9(4), 625–636.

Publisher’s Note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and
institutional affiliations.