Privatizing Montessori.udThe capitalisation of knowledgeudand the inability to renew meanings

摘要

The main aim of the article is an analysis of the privatization of pedagogical knowledgeudusing an example of one of the alternative pedagogies (Montessori Method). We claimudthat nowadays, pedagogical knowledge is treated as economic capital, and therefore subject toudmodifications characteristic for neoliberal culture.udIn our analysis we implement qualitative focus interviews conducted with various membersudof the Montessori community (teachers, owners and administrators of schools) who have gainedudaccess to a rare commodity – that is, knowledge regarding the teaching methodology of thisudparticular pedagogical approach.udThe results of this empirical research point to mechanisms characteristic for making pedagogicaludknowledge classified and “gilded”, mechanisms that limit it to the closed space of a particularuddiscourse society.udWe conclude that this ‘inbred’ form of knowledge transfer can lead to an inability to renewudmeanings and, as a consequence, to the replacement of critical and in depth pedagogical considerationsudwith a form of dogma that may be culturally inadequate and reproduced as a technicaludprocedure, which is far from what Montessori herself wrote about the method.