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Cited by 21Education Methods and PracticesEarly Childhood Education and DevelopmentPsychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction

An Association Between Montessori Education in Childhood and Adult Wellbeing

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Lillard, Angeline S., Meyer, M. Joseph, Vasc, Dermina, Fukuda, Eren·2021·Frontiers in Psychology
DOI 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.721943PMC PMC8656358
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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.

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  • Montessori classrooms are prepared environments: immersive ecologies of purposefully selected and organized artefacts that allow students of different ages and developmental stages to extrapolate knowledge from everyday activities at different levels of development.

    “Known as ‘prepared environment’, the classroom is an immersive ‘ecology’ of purposefully selected and organized artefacts that allows students of different age and developmental stages”

    From Active inference goes to school: the importance of active learning in the age of large language models (2024) · cites this paper as [150]

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Authors
Lillard, A. S., Meyer, M. J., Vasc, D., & Fukuda, E.
Affiliations
University of Virginia (US)
Corresponding author
Lillard, Angeline S.
ORCID
Venue
Frontiers in Psychology
Publisher
Frontiers Media SA
Published
2021-11-25
Volume
12
Pages
721943-721943
ISSN
1664-1078 (ISSN-L)
DOI
10.3389/fpsyg.2021.721943
PMC
PMC8656358
OpenAlex
W3216937015
Cited by
21
References
113
Citations by year
2026: 4 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 5 · 2023: 4 · 2022: 2
FWCI
4.84
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
Locations
  • Frontiers in Psychology (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Education › Education Methods and Practices
  • Social Sciences › Education › Early Childhood Education and Development
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Psychological Well-being and Life Satisfaction
Keywords
Montessori method, adult well-being, self-determination, engagement, social trust, self-confidence, private schools, selection effects

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