From Ellen Key to Maria Montessori: planning new educational spaces for childhood

Abstract

In the first phase of research it conducts an historical and pedagogical analysis on the relationship between childhoods, families and institutions, identifying family-models changes and their interdependence with the elaboration of new educative practices. At the beginning of twentieth century, Ellen Key wrote the famous book The century of children. Following the introduction of Modernity age, the author defined a new idea of “motherhood” and “fatherhood” which focused on childish subjects’ needs and requirements. Her prospective became item of debate both in pedagogic and in feminist fields, especially in regard to women’s dilemma on how to combine public and private life, motherhood and individual autonomy. In particular, Maria Montessori took up the Ellen Key challenge, in fact she made the pedagogical experiment of Children’s House, where domestic space became institutional space (settings’ aesthetic quality, human relationships’ care).