In the spring of 1990, the American Montessori Society sponsored a symposium seeking to reassess the influence and significance of Maria Montessori's ideas in American culture. Montessori in Contemporary American Culture is a record of that symposium -- the first time the Montessori approach, as an American educational alternative, has been the subject of a national dialogue. Editor Margaret Loeffler, through compiling the papers presented at the meeting, provides the reader with up-to date information on how Montessori's ideas and methods are currently employed in American culture, noting ways these ideas have been adapted and changed during the Americanization process and examining the relationship between Montessori's core concepts and new knowledge and research in the areas of child development and education.