An Association Between Montessori Education in Childhood and Adult Wellbeing

Abstract

Wellbeing, or how people think and feel about their lives, predicts important life outcomes from happiness to health to longevity. Montessori pedagogy has features that enhance wellbeing contemporaneously and predictively, including self-determination, meaningful activities, and social stability. Here, 1905 adults, ages 18–81 (M = 36), filled out a large set of wellbeing scales followed by demographic information including type of school attended each year from 2 to 17. About half the sample had only attended conventional schools and the rest had attended Montessori for between 2 and 16 years (M = 8 years). To reduce the variable set, we first developed a measurement model of wellbeing using the survey data with exploratory then confirmatory factor analyses, arriving at four factors: general wellbeing, engagement, social trust, and self-confidence. A structural equation model that accounted for age, gender, race, childhood SES, and years in private school revealed that attending Montessori for at least two childhood years was associated with significantly higher adult wellbeing on all four factors. A second analysis found that the difference in wellbeing between Montessori and conventional schools existed even among the subsample that had exclusively attended private schools. A third analysis found that the more years one attended Montessori, the higher one’s wellbeing as an adult. Unmeasured selection effects could explain the results, in which case research should determine what third variable associated with Montessori schooling causes adult wellbeing. Several other limitations to the study are also discussed. Although some of these limitations need to be addressed, coupled with other research, including studies in which children were randomly assigned to Montessori schools, this study suggests that attending Montessori as a child might plausibly cause higher adult wellbeing.

“My Name Is Sally Brown, and I Hate School!”: A retrospective study of school liking among conventional and Montessori school alumni

“…This might suggest that Montessori schools do not have a positive social climate, and it is the case that 25% of the Montessori sample (compared to 15.1% for conventional) said that the social milieu was what they liked least about school. On the other hand, other research shows that Montessori schools have a more positive social climate than other schools (Lillard & Else‐Quest, 2006; Rathunde & Csikszentmihalyi, 2005a; 2005b), and Montessori students are more socially attuned (Denervaud et al, 2020; İman et al, 2017), have more developed theory of mind (Lillard & Else‐Quest, 2006; Lillard et al, 2017), and report higher well‐being in adulthood, with duration of Montessori attendance significantly predicting adult social engagement (Lillard et al, 2021). The present finding regarding social climate might be the result of participants needing to specify something as “least well liked,” and conventional alumni having more strongly disliked features that Montessori schools lack (like tests and grades).…”

Active Inference Goes to School. The Importance of Active Learning in the Age of Large Language Models

“…39). Chosen activities are meaningful, and the child focuses its attention and performs them with an autonomously established increasing precision (Lillard et al, 2021): "whether moving blocks or…composing poetry, agents engage in activities with internal normative standards that allow them to do the activities well" (Frierson, 2022, Pp. 49;[emphasis in the original]).…”

Parents' Satisfaction with the Facilities in Montessori School at Nawalparasi District

“…Similarly, Montessori classrooms were designed to be self-directed environments that aided in developing children's independence. Some classrooms use only Montessori materials, while others supplement Montessori materials with commercially available materials such as puzzles and games (Lillard &Heise 2016).…”