Montessori in Italian primary schools today: Some issues raised by an empirical study

This study aims to contribute to the evaluation of Montessori education in Italian primary schools, examining a) its impact on academic and socio-affective outcomes; b) teacher profiles and the fidelity of their implementation. The results show that Montessori students, depending on grade and cohort, achieve similar or significantly higher scores than other students. Additionally, in some cases the distributions of math scores have a significantly higher standard deviation. Regarding socio-affective characteristics, Montessori students score significantly higher on the empathy scale. These results, combined with the fact that only half of Montessori teachers have a more orthodox profile, highlight how the Montessori model conflicts with some features of the Italian primary school system. This raises some questions concerning evaluation, limits to children’s freedom of choice and movement, individualization, organization of work time, and multi-age classrooms.