Montessori responses to "the healthy child". Between political imperatives and everyday pedagogical practices.

This research project takes point of departure in practices, discourses and subjectivities around "the healthy child", and how the ideal of a thriving, robust and self-efficient child ought to be cultivated, governed and regulated in society as practices of health pedagogies. The project draws on changes of legislations in Danish preschools, and governments' substantial investments in local policies and strategies to promote healthy and successful children. In this regard, the research study explores recent theorizations of education and health promotion, and the politically institutionalized attempts to challenge social inequalities of health from an early age.

The Montessori Method has found its way into this research study as the method, despite its pre-modern origin, has a contemporary bio-psycho-social health promotional constitution. In the light of predominant health imperatives and ‘public pedagogies’, the project explores two Montessori preschools in Denmark, their teaching environment, and the teachers' role in facilitating the notion of a healthy, thriving child in everyday pedagogical practices.