We are excited about a new research study published this fall that found Montessori education can have a significant impact on child outcomes - especially for children from low income backgrounds. They compared 3-6 year old children accepted by lottery into public Montessori schools with peers at other schools and found that Montessori students did better on:
- social cognition
- mastery orientation (persevering at difficult tasks)
- enjoying scholastic activities
It is especially encouraging to us to know that low-income children showed the greatest gains from a Montessori education. Lead researcher Angeline Lillard explains, “If you look at what happened with low-income control children in non-Montessori schools, relative to the other children, they start low and get lower, doing worse over time,” she said. “If you look at the low-income Montessori children, they are on the upswing, so that by the fourth evaluation, they are not significantly different from the control high-income sample or the Montessori high-income sample.”
The Montessori approach has promising potential to overcome the "income achievement gap" and help all students perform at higher levels academically - while also developing social skills and maintaining enjoyment of school.
Want to know more? You can read a summary of the research or the full article, published in the journal Frontiers in Psychology.
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