Fröbel’s Pedagogy of Kindergarten and Play Modifications in Germany and the United States Routledge Research in Early Childhood Education Series

This text provides a comprehensive analysis of historical archives, letters, and primary sources to offer unique insight into how Fröbel?s pedagogy of kindergarten and play has been understood, interpreted, and modified throughout history and in particular, as a consequence of it?s adoption in the US.

Tracing the development, modification, and global spread of the kindergarten movement, this volume demonstrates the far-reaching impacts of Fröbel?s work, and asks how far contemporary understandings of the kindergarten pedagogy reflect the educationalist?s original intentions. Recognizing that Fröbel?s pedagogy has at times been simplified or misunderstood, the book tackles issues caused by translation, or transfer to non-German speaking countries such as the US, and so demonstrates how and why contemporary research and Froebelian practice is in the danger of diverging from the original ideas expressed in Fröbel?s work. By returning to original documents produced by Fröbel, Wasmuth traces various interpretations, and explains how and why some of these understandings established themselves in the context of US Early Childhood Education, whilst others did not.

This insightful text will be of great interest to graduate and postgraduate students, researchers, academics, professionals and policy makers in the fields of early childhood education, history of education, Philosophy of Education and Teacher Education.

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Part I: Friedrich Fröbel and his pedagogy of kindergarten and play

Chapter 1: Friedrich Fröbel on his way of becoming an educator of young children

Chapter 2: The Invention of Kindergarten

Chapter 3: The Challenge of Finding the "Authentic" Fröbel and Translating his Work

Chapter 4: Fröbel’s worldview and his pedagogy of kindergarten and play

Part II: The Fröbelianer and their modification of Fröbel’s pedagogy of kindergarten and play

Chapter 5: The organizational development of the Fröbel movement

Chapter 6: The evolution of Fröbel’s pedagogy of kindergarten and play

Part III: How kindergarten came to the United States

Chapter 7: The kindergarten movement in the US and the openness to Fröbel

Chapter 8: The transfer of Fröbel’s pedagogy of kindergarten and play to the US

Chapter 9: Conclusion: The history of Fröbel’s pedagogy of kindergarten and play and its modification

Bibliography

Helge Wasmuth is Associate Professor in the Department of Childhood Education at Mercy College, USA.