Poster #33 - Racial Equity in Montessori Lesson Presentation and Mastery

• In Event: Poster Session 13

Abstract

Over 100 years ago, Dr. Maria Montessori developed an entirely new system of education that prioritizes self-determination and intrinsic motivation (Lillard, 2019), in the hopes of improving education outcomes for children of all backgrounds and identities (Montessori, 1912). In Montessori schools, students are predominantly given lessons individually, and they have the freedom to work independently and with any classroom materials over which they have already received a lesson. Several studies have reported that the academic achievement gap between students of color and white students is smaller in Montessori schools relative to non-Montessori schools (Brown & Lewis, 2017; Lillard & Else-Quest, 2006; Lillard et al., 2017; Snyder et al., 2022). These studies have primarily relied on standardized test scores to draw these conclusions. However, no study to date has closely considered how the instructional practices in a Montessori classroom are leading to more equitable outcomes for students of different racial identities. Because Montessori lessons are given individually, one could imagine how racial bias could influence Montessori teacher’s decisions about which students are ready for what lesson and when, and how these decisions could lead to students from historically marginalized groups falling through the cracks. Therefore, it is worth asking to what extent Montessori teachers achieve racial equity in their presentation of lessons to all students in their class.

This study aims to answer this question by analyzing teacher records of all the lessons delivered over the course of an entire school year in Montessori classrooms. We use data from the 2021-2022 school year from four, publicly funded and racially diverse Montessori schools. In each of these schools, teachers record which lessons they gave to which student in an app called Transparent Classroom. Our sample includes 166,449 lessons delivered to 1,094 students (39% White, 38% Black, 11% Hispanic, and 11% multiracial) ages 4-14 years old. Each observation in the data includes whether the lesson was “introduced” to or “mastered” by the student, and the date and time when it was recorded.

Analysis of these data are ongoing, but we plan to run multilevel regression analyses (nesting lessons within students and students within schools) comparing the cumulative number of lessons introduced to and mastered by students of different racial identities over the course of the school year. Figures 1 and 2 show the average cumulative number of lessons delivered to students from each of the different racial groups represented in these data over time. In both plots, racial groups begin with zero lessons, but a gap quickly emerges and grows until the end of the school year. We predict that we will observe a statistically significant difference in the slopes plotted here for each of the different racial groups, such that White students receive significantly more lessons over time relative to the other racial groups. We do not expect that there will be a significant difference between Black, Hispanic, and Multiracial students. Findings will have implications for practitioners.

Author

• Lee LeBoeuf, University of Virginia - Charlottesville
  Presenting Author