Re-contextualizing The Early Reception of Montessori in Spain (1906-1936)
Maria Montessori is an intellectual figure who emerges with her own voice in the history of transnational education in the 20th century. In the case of Spain, her influence has been and continues to be profound. This work proposes a historical study of her early reception in the Spanish context in the three decades that pass from 1906 to 1936. The starting point is a re-contextualization of her educational ideas from the perspective of fields of knowledge beyond pedagogy itself, an aspect not yet addressed by historians of education. The study is part of the current of intellectual history, more specifically in the studies of the circulation, transfer, and reception of ideas. The works of historians such as David Armitage and David Boucher, who have developed analytical contextual approaches for the study of ideas and their reconfiguration in specific geographical spaces and specific time periods, are taken as the main reference. A recontextualization of the reception process of Montessori's ideas is proposed from three apparently distant fields of pedagogy in the first three decades of the 20th century in Spain: politics, religion and medicine. A transversal and complex reception of Montessori's ideas in Spain is confirmed, covering a wide ideological spectrum. The study also reveals that Montessori’s work in fields such as politics and religion were received even before those of the field of pedagogy.